Human Interactions Textbook - Copy

Why Are Geographers Concerned with Scale and Connectedness? 25

MARYLAND WASHINGTON, D.C. METRO
AREA MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD
INCOME BY CENSUS TRACT

IN 2009

120,000 and Above

90,000 to 119,999

60,000 to 89,999

30,000 to 59,999

Below 30,000

Rockville Greenbelt

Silver
Spring

Reston WASHINGTON, D.C.
Fairfax
Arlington

Alexandria

VIRGINIA 0 5 10 15 Kilometers
0 5 10 Miles

Figure 1.17
Median Family Income (in U.S. dollars), 2009. Data from: United States Census Bureau, 2010.

physical geographic criterion, such as the karst region world, the French-speaking formal region expands
of China (Fig. 1.18). beyond France into former French colonies of Africa
and into the overseas departments that are still associ-
A formal region has a shared trait, it can be a shared ated politically with France.
cultural trait or a physical trait. In a formal cultural
region, people share one or more cultural traits. For A functional region is defined by a particular set
example, the region of Europe where French is spoken of activities or interactions that occur within it. Places
by a majority of the people can be thought of as a that are part of the same functional region interact to
French-speaking region. When the scale of analysis create connections. Functional regions have a shared
shifts, the formal region changes. If we shift scales to the political, social, or economic purpose. For example, a

26 Chapter 1 Introduction to Human Geography

Figure 1.18
Guilin, China. The South China Karst region, bisected here by the Li River outside Guilin, is an
UNESCO World Heritage Site. © Alexander B. Murphy.

city has a surrounding region within which workers traits, such as dress, food, and religion; places and their
commute, either to the downtown area or to subsidiary physical traits, such as mountains, plains, or coasts; and
centers such as office parks and shopping malls. That built environments, such as windmills, barns, skyscrap-
entire urban area, defined by people moving toward and ers, or beach houses.
within it, is a functional region. Thus a functional
region is a spatial system; its boundaries are defined by But where is this Mid-Atlantic region? If Maryland
the limits of that system. Functional regions are not and Delaware are part of it, then eastern Pennsylvania
necessarily culturally homogeneous; instead, the people is, too. But where across Pennsylvania lies the boundary
within the region function together politically, socially, of this partly cultural, partly physical region, and on
or economically. The city of Chicago is a functional what basis can it be drawn? There is no single best
region, and the city itself is part of hundreds of func- answer (Fig. 1.19).
tional regions-from the State of Illinois to the seventh
federal reserve district. Major news events help us create our perceptual
regions by defining certain countries or areas of countries
Finally, regions may be primarily in the minds of as part of a region. Before September 11, 2001, we all had
people. Perceptual regions are intellectual constructs perceptions of the Middle East region. For most of us,
designed to help us understand the nature and distribu- that region included Iraq and Iran but stretched no farther
tion of phenomena in human geography. Geographers east. As the hunt for Osama bin Laden began and the
do not agree entirely on their properties, but we do con- media focused attention on the harsh rule of the Taliban
cur that we all have impressions and images of various in Afghanistan, our regional perceptions of the Middle
regions and cultures. These perceptions are based on our East changed; for many, the region stretched to encom-
accumulated knowledge about such regions and cultures. pass Afghanistan and Pakistan. Scholars who specialize in
Perceptual regions are not just curiosities. How people this part of the globe had long studied the relationship
think about regions has influenced everything from daily between parts of Southwest Asia and the traditional
activity patterns to large-scale international conflict. A “Middle East,” but the connections between Afghanistan
perceptual region can include people, their cultural and Pakistan and the rest of the Middle East were almost
invisible to the general population.

Why Are Geographers Concerned with Scale and Connectedness? 27

Figure 1.19 The problem of defining and delimiting perceptual
Mid-Atlantic Cultural Region. One delimitation of the Mid- regions can be approached in several ways. One is to con-
Atlantic culture region. Adapted with permission from: H. Glassie, duct interviews in which people residing within as well as
Pattern in the Material Folk Culture of the Eastern United States. outside a region are asked to respond to questions about
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968, p. 39. their home and cultural environment. Zelinsky used a dif-
ferent technique; he analyzed the telephone directories of
Perceptual Regions in the United States 276 metropolitan areas in the United States and Canada,
noting the frequency with which businesses and other
Cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky tackled the com- enterprises use regional or locational terms (such as
plex task of defining and delimiting the perceptual regions “Southern Printing Company” or “Western Printing”) in
of the United States and southern Canada. In an article their listings. The resulting maps show a close similarity
titled “North America’s Vernacular Regions,” he identi- between these perceptual regions and culture regions
fied 12 major perceptual regions on a series of maps (sum- identified by geographers.
marized in Fig. 1.20). When you examine the map, you
will notice some of the regions overlap in certain places. Among the perceptual regions shown in Figure 1.20,
For example, the more general term the West actually one, the South, is unlike any of the others. Even today, five
incorporates more specific regions, such as the Pacific generations after the Civil War, the Confederate flag still
Region and part of the Northwest. evokes strong sentiments from both those who revere the
flag and those who revile it.

A “New South” has emerged over the past several
decades, forged by Hispanic immigration, urbanization,
movement of people from other parts of the United States
to the South, and other processes. But the South, espe-
cially the rural South, continues to carry imprints of a cul-
ture with deep historical roots. Its legacy is preserved in
language, religion, music, food preferences, and other tra-
ditions and customs.

If you drive southward from, say, Pittsburgh or
Detroit, you will not pass a specific place where you
enter this perceptual region. You will note features in
the cultural landscape that you perceive to be associated
with the South (such as Waffle House restaurants), and
at some stage of the trip these features will begin to
dominate the area to such a degree that you will say, “I
am really in the South now.” This may result from a
combination of features in the culture: the style of

50° PERCEPTUAL REGIONS OF NORTH AMERICA EAST
PACIFIC CANADA

NORTHWEST NORTH ATLANTIC
MIDWEST
EAST NORTHEAST

WEST NEW
ENGLAND 40°

MIDDLE
ATLANTIC

70°

No Regional
Affiliation

PACIFIC Figure 1.20
30° Perceptual Regions of North America.

120° 110° Adapted with permission from: W. Zelinsky,
(After W. Zelinsky) “North America’s Vernacular Regions,” Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, 1980,
p. 14.

Guest
Field Note

Montgomery, Alabama

Located in a predominately African American neighborhood in Montgom-

ery, Alabama, the street intersection of Jeff Davis and Rosa Parks is sym-

bolic of the debates and disputes in the American South over how the

past is to be commemorated on the region’s landscape. The Civil War and

civil rights movement are the two most important events in the history of

the region. The street names commemorate Montgomery’s central role in

both eras, and they do so in the same public space. Montgomery was the

site of the first capital of the Confederacy in 1861 while Jefferson Davis

was president. The Alabama capital was also the site of the 1955–1956

Montgomery bus boycott that launched the civil rights movement. The Figure 1.21
boycott was sparked by Rosa Parks’s arrest after she refused to give up her

seat on a city bus when ordered to do so by a white person. Most of my

research examines the politics of how the region’s white and African

Americans portray these separate heroic eras within the region’s public spaces, ranging from support for and against flying

the Confederate flag to disputes over placing statues and murals honoring the Civil War and the civil rights movement on

the South’s landscape.

Credit: Jonathan Leib, Old Dominion University

houses and their porches, items on a roadside restaurant Culture
menu (grits, for example), a local radio station’s music,
the sound of accents that you perceive to be Southern, a Location decisions, patterns, and landscapes are funda-
succession of Baptist churches in a town along the way. mentally influenced by cultural attitudes and practices.
These combined impressions become part of your over- Culture refers not only to the music, literature, and arts of
all perception of the South as a region. a society but to all the other features of its way of life: pre-
vailing modes of dress; routine living habits; food prefer-
Such cultural attributes give a certain social atmo- ences; the architecture of houses and public buildings; the
sphere to the region, an atmosphere that is appreciated by layout of fields and farms; and systems of education, gov-
many of its residents and is sometimes advertised as an ernment, and law. Culture is an all-encompassing term
attraction for potential visitors. “Experience the South’s that identifies not only the whole tangible lifestyle of peo-
warmth, courtesy, and pace of life,” said one such com- ples, but also their prevailing values and beliefs. Culture
mercial, which portrayed a sun-drenched seaside land- lies at the heart of human geography.
scape, a bowing host, and a couple strolling along a palm-
lined path. The concept of culture is closely identified with the
discipline of anthropology, and over the course of more
The South has its vigorous supporters and defend- than a century anthropologists have defined it in many
ers, and occasionally a politician uses its embattled history different ways. Some have stressed the contributions of
to arouse racial antagonism. But today the South is so humans to the environment, whereas others have empha-
multifaceted, diverse, vigorous, and interconnected with sized learned behaviors and ways of thinking. Several
the rest of the United States that its regional identity is decades ago the noted anthropologist E. Adamson Hoebel
much more complicated than traditional images suggest defined culture as:
(Fig. 1.21). This serves as an important reminder that per-
ceptual regions are not static. Images of the South are rap- [the] integrated system of learned behavior patterns
idly changing, and perceptions of the South as a region which are characteristic of the members of a society and
will change over time. which are not the result of biological inheritance . . . cul-
ture is not genetically predetermined; it is noninstinc-
Regions, whether formal, functional, or percep- tive . . . [culture] is wholly the result of social invention
tual, are ways of organizing humans geographically. and is transmitted and maintained solely through com-
They are a form of spatial classification, a means of munication and learning.
handling large amounts of information so we can make
sense of it.

28

Why Are Geographers Concerned with Scale and Connectedness? 29

Hoebel’s emphasis on communication and learning antic- the same combination of traits. In Europe, cattle are
ipated the current view of culture as a system of meaning, milked, and dairy products, such as butter, yogurt, and
not just a set of acts, customs, or material products. cheese, are consumed as part of a diet very different from
Clifford Geertz advanced this view in his classic work, The that of the Maasai.
Interpretation of Cultures (1973), which has influenced
much recent work in human geography. Hence, human A cultural hearth is an area where cultural traits
geographers are interested not just in the different pat- develop and from which cultural traits diffuse. Often a
terns and landscapes associated with different culture cultural trait, for example the religion of Islam, can be
groups, but in the ways in which cultural understandings traced to a single place and time. Muhammad founded
affect both the creation and significance of those patterns Islam in the 500s c.e. (current era) in and around the cities
and landscapes. of Mecca and Medina on the Arabian Peninsula. Other
culture traits, such as agriculture, can be traced to several
Cultural geographers identify a single attribute of a hearths thousands of years apart. When such a trait devel-
culture as a culture trait. For example, wearing a turban ops in more than one hearth without being influenced by
is a culture trait in certain societies. Many men in the its development elsewhere, each hearth operates as a case
semiarid and desert areas of North Africa, Southwest Asia, of independent invention.
and South Asia wore turbans before the birth of Islam.
The turbans protected the wearers from sunlight and also Connectedness through Diffusion
helped distinguish tribes.
Geographer Carl Sauer focused attention on how ideas,
Not all Muslim men wear turbans, but in some specifically the innovation of agriculture, spread in
Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, wearing tur- Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. Based on geography and
bans is popular because either religious or political lead- archaeological evidence, Sauer established that MesoAmerica
ers (in the case of Afghanistan, the Taliban) prescribe it independently invented agriculture, adding it to the
for men. Today, turbans often distinguish a man’s status hearths of agriculture in Europe, Africa, and Asia. When
in society or are worn as a sign of faithfulness to God. In ideas, people, or goods move across space, this process of
many Muslim countries, including Egypt and Turkey, dissemination is called cultural diffusion.
men rarely wear turbans. The appearance of turbans in
other Muslim countries varies a great deal. For instance, In 1970, Swedish geographer Torsten Hägerstrand
in Yemen men who cover their heads typically wear published pioneering research on the role of time in the dif-
kalansuwa, which are caps wrapped in fabric. In fusion process. Hägerstrand’s research revealed how time,
Palestine, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, men who cover as well as distance, affects individual human behavior and
their heads typically wear kaffiyeh, which are rectangular the diffusion of people and ideas. Sauer and Hägerstrand’s
pieces of cloth draped and secured on the head. fascinating research attracted many geographers to the
study of diffusion processes. Geographers are still using
Wearing turbans is not a cultural trait limited to principles of diffusion to model movement and diffusion
Muslims. In the United States, most men who cover their through GIS and other geographic techniques.
heads with a turban are Sikhs, which is a separate religion
from Islam. In the Sikh religion, men are required to keep Whether diffusion of a cultural trait occurs depends,
their hair uncut. The common practice is to twist the hair in part, on time and distance from the hearth. The farther
and knot it on top of one’s head and then cover it with a a place is from the hearth, the less likely an innovation will
turban. The Sikh religion began in the 1500s, and in the be adopted. Similarly, the acceptance of an innovation
late 1600s, the tenth guru of the religion taught that becomes less likely the longer it takes to reach its potential
wearing a turban was a way to demonstrate one’s faithful- adopters. In combination, time and distance cause time-
ness to God. As the turban example exhibits, culture traits distance decay in the diffusion process.
are not necessarily confined to a single culture. More than
one culture may exhibit a particular culture trait, but each Not all cultural traits or innovations diffuse.
will consist of a discrete combination of traits. Such a Prevailing attitudes or cultural taboos can mean that cer-
combination is referred to as a culture complex. In many tain innovations, ideas, or practices are not acceptable or
cultures, the herding of cattle is a trait. However, cattle adoptable in particular cultures. Religious teachings may
are regarded and used in different ways by different cul- prohibit certain practices or ideas, such as divorce, abor-
tures. The Maasai of East Africa, for example, follow their tions, or contraceptive use, on the grounds of theology or
herds along seasonal migration paths, consuming blood morality. Some cultures or religions prohibit consump-
and milk as important ingredients of a unique diet. Cattle tion of alcoholic beverages, and others prohibit consum-
occupy a central place in Maasai existence; they are the ing certain kinds of meat or other foods. Prescriptions
essence of survival, security, and prestige. Although the cultures make about behavior act as cultural barriers
Maasai culture complex is only one of many cattle-keep- and can pose powerful obstacles to the spread of ideas or
ing complexes, no other culture complex exhibits exactly innovations.

30 Chapter 1 Introduction to Human Geography

Expansion Diffusion majority of Croak’s marketing came from contagious
diffusion, a form of expansion diffusion in which nearly
When a cultural trait, such as a religion, spreads, it typi- all adjacent individuals and places are affected. One child
cally does so from a hearth. Islam’s hearth was on the had Silly Bandz, and the next day, many more children in
Arabian Peninsula, and from there, Islam diffused to his classroom would have the bracelets.
Egypt and North Africa, through Southwest Asia, and
into West Africa. This is a case of expansion diffusion, Croak already had a company, Brainchild Products,
when an innovation or idea develops in a hearth and that sold silicon awareness bracelets, and he worked with
remains strong there while also spreading outward. his Chinese supplier to create Silly Bandz. Croak trade-
Geographers classify diffusion processes into two broad marked the name and launched a website in the summer of
categories: expansion diffusion and relocation diffusion. 2008. Without spending any money on marketing, Croak
In the case of expansion diffusion, an innovation or idea started a Facebook page. Between the website and the
develops in a hearth and remains strong there while also Facebook page, the demand for Silly Bandz diffused conta-
spreading outward (Fig. 1.22). giously and quickly. Business Week reports the company that
once shipped 24 boxes a day out of its Toledo headquarters
Expansion diffusion takes several forms. The sili- now ships 1500 boxes a day. Croak reports Silly Bandz are
con bands that are different shapes and colors, like an “carried in approximately 18,000 stores in 25 states.”
animal, a football, or a continent, and that stretch into
bracelets are called Silly Bandz. Robert Croak, a busi- Although several other competitors quickly entered
nessman from Toledo, Ohio, invented the bands in 2008 the market, the demand for Croak’s Silly Bandz increased
after seeing similar rubber bands produced by a Japanese in stores. Croak now offers Silly Bandz in partnership
company when he was at a trade show in China. The vast with celebrities and companies, including Justin Bieber.

A. Contagious Diffusion

Figure 1.22 LEGEND
Contagious and Hierarchical Diffusion.
Hearth
A. B. Murphy, H. J. de Blij, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Early diffusion

Later diffusion

Important person
or place

No diffusion

© E. H. Fouberg,

B. Hierarchial Diffusion

Why Are Geographers Concerned with Scale and Connectedness? 31

In addition to the contagious diffusion on the play- enthusiasts to gardeners to the American public-
ground and in the classrooms, the diffusion of Silly Bandz, becoming especially popular among children, who
as opposed to a competing brand, is going to be greatest adorned their crocs with Jibbitz, or charms designed
around the 18,000 stores in 25 states that sell this particu- for crocs. The hierarchy of boaters, gardeners, and
lar product. The stores create a hierarchy, a structure to then the contagious diffusion that followed helps
the diffusion of the innovation, in this case a particular explain the rapid growth of the crocs brand, which had
brand of bracelets. revenues of over $800 million in 2007.

Instead of Silly Bandz on their wrists, many Major A third form of expansion diffusion is stimulus dif-
League Baseball players now wear necklaces. The colorful fusion. Not all ideas can be readily and directly adopted by
necklaces are not made of silicon. They are made of a a receiving population; some are simply too vague, too
nylon fabric that matches their uniform and is imbued unattainable, too different, or too impractical for immedi-
with titanium. The baseball players, including Justin ate adoption. Yet, these ideas can still have an impact. They
Morneau of the Minnesota Twins, Joba Chamberlain of may indirectly promote local experimentation and even-
the New York Yankees, and Josh Beckett of the Boston tual changes in ways of doing things. For example, the dif-
Red Sox, wear titanium necklaces sold by Phiten. Phiten is fusion of fast, mass-produced food in the late twentieth
a Japanese company with corporate stores in Honolulu, century led to the introduction of the hamburger to India.
Hawaii, Torrance, California, and Seattle, Washington. Yet the Hindu religion in India prohibits consumption of
beef, which is a major cultural obstacle to the adoption of
Formed in 1983, the Phiten Company uses what it the hamburger (Fig. 1.23). Instead, retailers began selling
calls aqua technology to disperse titanium throughout the burgers made of vegetable products. The diffusion of the
nylon fabric it uses to make necklaces and bracelets. hamburger took on a new form in the cultural context of
Phiten supporters believe the titanium helps restore bal- India. With expansion diffusion, whether contagious or
ance and allows the flow of energy through fatigued mus- hierarchical, the people stay in place and the innovation,
cles. The company’s website states that wearing a Phiten idea, trait, or disease does the moving.
will “restore normal relaxation” for customers. Phiten not
only sells necklaces and bracelets, but also compression Relocation Diffusion
sleeves and shorts, athletic tape, patches, and even bed-
ding infused with aqua metals, typically titanium. Relocation diffusion occurs most frequently through
migration. When migrants move from their homeland,
The diffusion of Phitens from its hearth in Japan to they take their cultural traits with them. Developing an
the United States began with a sport the two countries ethnic neighborhood in a new country helps immigrants
share: baseball. In 2001, New York Yankee Randy maintain their culture in the midst of an unfamiliar one.
Johnson traveled to Japan and saw baseball players wear- Relocation diffusion, in contrast, involves the actual
ing titanium necklaces. He started wearing a Phiten, and movement of individuals who have already adopted the
other Major League players in the United States soon idea or innovation, and who carry it to a new, perhaps dis-
followed. The custom caught on hierarchically, from tant, locale, where they proceed to disseminate it (Fig.
team to team and contagiously from player to player. In 1.22). If the homeland of the immigrants loses enough of
an article published by CBS News, a regional sales man- its population, the cultural customs may fade in the
ager for Phiten in Seattle is quoted as saying “I’d say hearth while gaining strength in the ethnic neighbor-
about three-fourths of the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota hoods abroad.
Twins players use them.” Baseball players adopted the
custom because they believe the titanium helped allevi- Once you think about different types of diffusion, you will
ate muscle pain. be tempted to figure out what kinds of diffusion are tak-
ing place for all sorts of goods, ideas, or diseases. Please
An idea such as a new fashion or new genre of remember that any good, idea, or disease can diffuse in
music may not always spread throughout a contiguous more than one way. Choose a good, idea, or disease as
population. For example, the spread of Crocs footwear an example and describe how it diffused from its hearth
is a case of hierarchical diffusion, a pattern in which across the globe, referring to at least three different types
the main channel of diffusion is some segment of those of diffusion.
who are susceptible to (or adopting) what is being dif-
fused. In the case of Crocs, founder Scott Seamans
found a clog manufactured by a Canadian company that
was created out of the unique croc resin material.
Seamans, an avid sailor, put a strap on the back and
holes for drainage. He and two co-founders of the crocs
company based the company in Boulder, Colorado, had
the shoes manufactured, and sold them at boat shows in
2002 and 2003. Crocs footware diffused from boating

32 Chapter 1 Introduction to Human Geography

Figure 1.23 left and right
New Delhi, India (left) and Jodhpur, India (right). Hindus believe cows are holy, and in India, evidence of that can be seen
everywhere from cows roaming the streets to the menu at McDonald's. In 1996, the first McDonald's restaurant opened in New
Delhi, India (left), serving Maharaja Macs and Vegetable Burgers with Cheese. In Indian towns, such as Jodhpur (right), cows are
protected and share the streets with pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists. © Douglas E. Gurran/AFP/Getty Images (left) and (c) Alexander B.

Murphy (right).

WHAT ARE GEOGRAPHIC CONCEPTS, to variations in climate. Over 2000 years ago, Aristotle
AND HOW ARE THEY USED IN ANSWERING described northern European people as “full of spirit...
GEOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS? but incapable of ruling others,” and he characterized
Asian people (by which he meant modern-day Turkey) as
Geographic concepts include most of the boldfaced “intelligent and inventive... [but] always in a state of sub-
words in this chapter, such as place, relative location, men- jection and slavery.” Aristotle attributed these traits to the
tal map, perceptual region, diffusion, and cultural land- respective climates of the regions-the cold north versus
scape. In doing geographic research, a geographer thinks of the more tropical Mediterranean.
a geographic question, one that has a spatial or landscape
component, chooses the scale(s) of analysis, and then Aristotle’s views on this topic were long-lasting. As
applies one or more geographic concepts to conduct recently as the first half of the twentieth century, similar
research and answer the question. Geographers use field- notions still had strong support. In 1940, in the Principles
work, remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and qualitative and quan- of Human Geography, Ellsworth Huntington and C.W.
titative techniques to explore linkages among people and Cushing wrote:
places and to explain differences across people, places,
scales, and times. The well-known contrast between the energetic people of the
most progressive parts of the temperate zone and the inert
Research in human geography today stems from a inhabitants of the tropics and even of intermediate regions,
variety of theories and philosophies. To understand what such as Persia, is largely due to climate. . . the people of the
geographers do and how they do it, it is easiest to start by cyclonic regions rank so far above those of the other parts of
defining what geography is not. Today’s geography is not the world that they are the natural leaders.
environmental determinism.
Huntington and Cushing suggest climate is the critical
Rejection of Environmental Determinism factor in how humans behave. Yet what constitutes an
“ideal” climate lies in the eyes of the beholder. For
The ancient Greeks, finding that some of the peoples sub- Aristotle, it was the climate of Greece. Through the
jugated by their expanding empire were relatively docile eyes of more recent commentators from western Europe
while others were rebellious, attributed such differences and North America, the climates most suited to prog-
ress and productiveness in culture, politics, and tech-
nology are (you guessed it) those of western Europe and

What Are Geographic Concepts, and How Are They Used in Answering Geographic Questions? 33

the northeastern United States. Each of these theories environment, has been supplemented by interest in polit-
can be classified as environmental determinism, ical ecology, an area of inquiry fundamentally concerned
which holds that human behavior, individually and col- with the environmental consequences of dominant political-
lectively, is strongly affected by, even controlled or economic arrangements and understandings (see Chapter
determined by, the physical environment. 13). The fundamental point is that human societies are
diverse and the human will is too powerful to be deter-
For a time, some geographers attempted to explain mined by environment.
the location of major cultural hearths as solely a func-
tion of environment. Quite soon, however, certain Today’s Human Geography
geographers doubted whether these sweeping general-
izations were valid. They recognized exceptions to the Human geography today seeks to make sense of the spa-
environmental determinists’ theories. For example, the tial organization of humanity and human institutions on
Maya civilization in the Americas arose in a tropical cli- Earth’s surface, the character of the places and regions
mate that most assumed was incapable of complex cul- created by people, and the relationships between humans
tures. They argued that humanity was capable of much and the physical environment. Human geography encom-
more than merely adapting to the natural environment. passes many subdisciplines, including political geography,
The many environmentally determinist theories that economic geography, population geography, and urban
explain Europe as “superior” to the rest of the world geography. Human geography also encompasses cultural
because of the climate and location of the region ignore geography, which incorporates a concern with cultural
the fact that for thousands of years, the most techno- traits such as religion, language, and ethnicity.
logically advanced civilizations were found outside of
Europe in North Africa, Southwest Asia, Southeast Cultural geography is both part of human geogra-
Asia, and East Asia. phy and also its own approach to all aspects of human
geography. Cultural geography looks at the ways culture
Chipping away at deterministic explanations helped is implicated in the full spectrum of topics addressed in
move the geographic study of the relationships between human geography. As such, cultural geography can be
human society and the environment in different direc- seen as a perspective on human geography as much as a
tions. Everyone agrees that the natural environment component of it.
affects human activity in some ways, but people are the
decision makers and the modifiers-not just the slaves of To appreciate more fully the vast topics researched
environmental forces. People and their cultures shape by human geographers, we can examine the multitude of
environments, constantly altering the landscape and careers human geographers pursue. Human geographers
affecting environmental systems. have titles such as location analyst, urban planner, diplo-
mat, remote sensing analyst, geographic information sci-
Possibilism entist, area specialist, travel consultant, political analyst,
intelligence officer, cartographer, educator, soil scientist,
In response to environmental determinism, geographers transportation planner, park ranger, and environmental
argued that the natural environment merely serves to limit consultant. All of these careers and more are open to
the range of choices available to a culture. The choices that geographers because each of these fields is grounded in
a society makes depend on what its members need and on the understanding of places and is advanced through spa-
what technology is available to them. Geographers called tial analysis.
this doctrine possibilism.
Choose a geographic concept introduced in this chapter.
Even possibilism has its limitations, partly because it Think about something that is of personal interest to you
encourages a line of inquiry that starts with the physical (music, literature, politics, science, sports), and consider
environment and asks what it allows. Human cultures, how whatever you have chosen could be studied from a
however, frequently push the boundaries of what is “envi- geographical perspective. Think about space and location,
ronmentally possible” through their own ideas and inge- landscape, and place. Write a geographic question that
nuity, and advances in technology. In the interconnected, could be the foundation of a geographic study of the item
technologically dependent world we live in today, it is you have chosen.
possible to transcend many of the limitations imposed by
the natural environment.

Today, much research in human geography focuses
on how and why humans have altered environment, and
on the sustainability of their practices. In the process, the
interest in cultural ecology—an area of inquiry concerned
with culture as a system of adaptation to and alteration of

34 Chapter 1 Introduction to Human Geography

Summary

Our study of human geography will analyze people and places and explain how they
interact across space and time to create our world. Chapters 2 and 3 lay the basis for
our study of human geography by looking at where people live. Chapters 4–7 focus on
aspects of culture and how people use culture and identity to make sense of themselves
in their world. The remaining chapters examine how people have created a world in
which they function economically, politically, and socially, and how their activities in
those realms re-create themselves and their world.

Geographic Concepts distance functional region
accessibility perceptual region
fieldwork connectivity culture
human geography landscape culture trait
globalization cultural landscape culture complex
physical geography sequent occupance cultural hearth
spatial cartography independent invention
spatial distribution reference maps cultural diffusion
pattern thematic maps time-distance decay
medical geography absolute location cultural barrier
pandemic global positioning system expansion diffusion
epidemic geocaching contagious diffusion
spatial perspective relative location hierarchical diffusion
five themes mental map stimulus diffusion
location activity space relocation diffusion
location theory generalized map geographic concept
human-environment remote sensing environmental
region geographic information
place determinism
sense of place systems possibilism
perception of place rescale cultural ecology
movement formal region political ecology
spatial interaction

Learn More Online

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www.aag.org
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2005/spring/art01.pdf

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www.geocaching.org

About Globalization and Geography
www.lut.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb40.html

Watch It Online 35

About John Snow and His Work on Cholera
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow.html
About the State of Food Insecurity in the World
www.fao.org
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www.wfp.org
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Population 2CHAPTER

Field Note Basic Infrastructure

120E

110E 130E
MONG. RUSSIA

CHINA 40N
N. KOREA

S. KOREA JAPAN

Shanghai East 30N
China

Sea

VIET. PACIFIC
OCEAN

20N

PHILIPPINES

Figure 2.1
Shanghai, China. © Erin H. Fouberg.

The words wafted in the air as my colleague and I took a minute to process them.
We were in Shanghai, China, visiting with a Chinese student who had spent a
semester at our small college in a town of 26,000 in rural South Dakota. My col-
league had asked the student what he missed most about our small town of
Aberdeen. He replied without hesitating, “Basic infrastructure.”

I thought about brand-new subway lines in Shanghai and Beijing, new airports
throughout China, and high-speed trains being built to connect China’s cities. I
visualized the miles of gleaming new concrete we had driven on that afternoon on
the ring highway on the outskirts of Shanghai (Fig. 2.1) and the empty fields where
houses or other buildings had been leveled to make room for new high-density
housing, more concrete, and more infrastructure. Shanghai’s metro system only

36

Basic Infrastructure 37

dates to 1995. Shanghai now has the longest metro system on Earth—a system
capable of transporting 5 million people a day. I thought about the lack of public
transportation in my small town. I remembered that in 2010, China committed to
spend an additional $1 trillion on urban infrastructure by 2015. I considered the
words United States President Barack Obama used as he described, enviously, the
infrastructure in China, “their ports, their train systems their airports are all vastly
superior to us now.”

I looked at the student and said, “Basic infrastructure? But you have better
subway lines, high-speed railroads, roads, and airports than we do in the States.”
“Yes,” he said, “But I don’t have hot water.”

A 2010 report in Foreign Policy agreed, “China’s biggest urban challenge may
be water; already, it has little to spare. Some 70 percent of water use today traces
back to agriculture, but demand from urban consumers and commercial enter-
prise is on the rise. Even if the sheer amount of water isn’t the problem, location
will be; the country will need to spend more than $120 billion on water systems in
the coming years to transport, store, and manage supplies.” A graduate student in
Beijing reiterated the water problem in China’s cities. Her dormitory houses about
1000 students, but they all must walk out of the building to a central facility to
shower, and she reported that they are only allowed to shower between 2 and
4 PM or between 9 and 11 PM.

China’s population of 1.34 billion people has been migrating to cities in droves
since economic reforms began in 1978. In 2011, the population of the world hit
7 billion people, with rising populations in China and India accounting for 40 per-
cent of the population growth. China has undergone incredibly rapid expansion in
its mining and manufacturing sectors, resulting in economic growth rates that are
often at 10 percent a year. But rapid economic growth took its toll on water quality
in China, which exacerbates water shortages in the country.

Providing services for 1.34 billion people is no small feat. Even though
demographers now predict China’s population will stabilize at 1.4 billion by 2025
and begin to decline after that, shifts in the composition of China’s population
will continue to challenge the provision of basic infrastructure to the country’s
people.

Southern, coastal China has a moist climate, much like the southeastern
United States, but the climate in northern China is drier. With only 7% of the
world’s fresh water supply, China has an uphill battle in providing water
resources to 1.34 billion people. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that
southern China has 80% of the country’s water (Foreign Policy, 2011). To remedy
the imbalance, China is now building a $60 billion canal system called the
South-North Water Transfer Project that will include three different routes to
divert water from the Yangtze River in southern China to the cities in the north
(Fig. 2.2).

In this chapter, we examine the distribution of the world’s population at sev-
eral scales in order to understand where people live and why they live where they
do. We also look into the continued growth of global population, noting that
growth rates vary quite widely across our planet. Even as population growth in the
wealthier core slows down to near (or below!) zero, it continues in the less wealthy
periphery, in some countries at rates far above the global average. No such discus-
sion would be complete without consideration of the health conditions prevailing
across the world: health, well-being, and population growth tend to be closely
related. And we will study the role of governments in their efforts to control the
process.

38 Chapter 2 Population

Figure 2.2
Yixian, China. This canal is part of the South-North Water Transfer Project. The $60 billion
project will divert water from southern China to northern China along three different routes.

© Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.

Key Questions For Chapter 2

1. Where in the world do people live and why?
2. Why do populations rise or fall in particular places?
3. Why does population composition matter?
4. How does the geography of health influence population dynamics?
5. How do governments affect population change?

WHERE IN THE WORLD DO PEOPLE LIVE size (Fig. 2.3). Population density assumes an even distri-
AND WHY? bution of the population over the land. The United States,
for example, with a territory of 3,717,796 square miles or
When geographers study population, they focus on the 9,629,047 square kilometers (including the surfaces of
variability of demographic features and factors across space. lakes and ponds and coastal waters up to three nautical
Demography is the study of population in general perspective, miles from shore) had a population of 308.2 million in
and population geographers work in tandem with demogra- 2010. This yields an average population density for the
phers, seeking answers to the problems posed by these varia- United States of just over 82 per square mile (32 per sq
tions. The concept of scale is crucial in this research because km). This density figure is also known as the country’s
such variability occurs from region to region, country to arithmetic population density, and in a very general
country, and within individual countries themselves. way it emphasizes the contrasts between the United States
and such countries as Bangladesh (2741 per sq mi or 1058 per
Demographers report the population density of a sq km), the Netherlands (1046 per sq mile or 404 per sq km),
country as a measure of total population relative to land and Japan (875 per sq mile or 338 per sq km).

Where in the World Do People Live and Why? 39

Field Note poverty and unsophisticated infrastructure, vulnerabilities to
natural hazards can be particularly great. This became stun-
“An overpass across one of Yangon’s busy streets provides a ningly evident in 2008 when a tropical cyclone devastated
good perspective on the press of humanity in lowland South- a significant swath of the Irrawaddy Delta south of Yangon,
east Asia. Whether in urban areas or on small back roads in killing some 100,000 people and leaving millions homeless.”
the countryside, people are everywhere—young and old, fit
and infirm. When population densities are high in areas of

Figure 2.3
Yangon, Mayanmar (Burma). © Alexander B. Murphy.

No country has an evenly distributed population, and Physiologic Population Density
arithmetic population figures do not reflect the emptiness
of most of Alaska and the sparseness of population in much A superior index of population density relates the total
of the West. In other cases, it is actually quite misleading. population of a country or region to the area of arable
Egypt, with a population of 78.1 million in 2010, has a (farmable) land it contains. This is called the physio-
seemingly moderate arithmetic population density of 78 logic population density, defined as the number of
per square kilometer (201 per sq mi). Egypt’s territory of people per unit area of agriculturally productive land.
1,000,445 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi) however, is Take again the case of Egypt. Although millions of
mostly desert, and the vast majority of the population is people live in its great cities (Cairo and Alexandria)
crowded into the valley and delta of the Nile River. An and smaller urban centers, the irrigated farmland is
estimated 98 percent of all Egyptians live on just 3 percent densely peopled as well. When we measure the entire
of the country’s land, so, the arithmetic population density population of Egypt relative to the arable land in the
figure is meaningless in this case (Fig. 2.4 top, bottom). country, the resulting physiologic density figure for

40 Chapter 2 Population

Field Note Egypt in the year 2010 is 2599 per square kilometer
(5717 per sq mi). This number is far more reflective of
“The contrasting character of the Egyptian landscape could Egypt’s population pressure, and it continues to rise
not be more striking. Along the Nile River, the landscape is rapidly despite Egypt’s efforts to expand its irrigated
one of green fields, scattered trees, and modest houses, as farmlands.
along this stretch of the river’s west bank near Luxor (Fig. 2.4
top). But anytime I wander away from the river, brown, wind- Appendix B (at the end of this book) provides
sculpted sand dominates the scene as far as the eye can see complete data on both arithmetic and physiologic pop-
(Fig. 2.4 bottom). Where people live and what they do is not ulation densities, and some of the data stand out mark-
just a product of culture; it is shaped by the physical envi- edly. Mountainous Switzerland’s physiologic density is
ronment as well.” 10 times as high as its arithmetic density because only 1
out of every 10 acres in Switzerland is arable. Ukraine’s
Figure 2.4 top population is 45,600,000 and its arithmetic density
Luxor, Egypt. © Alexander B. Murphy. (population per sq km) is 76. Ukraine has vast farm-
lands which make its physiologic density 128 people
per sq km of arable land. When comparing arithmetic
density and physiologic density, the total number of
people stays the same, and the only number that
changes in calculating each is the amount of land. The
difference in arithmetic density and physiologic den-
sity for a single country reveals the proportion of arable
land to all land. In the case of Ukraine, the physiologic
density is 1.68 times as high as the arithmetic density
because 1 out of every 1.68 acres of land in Ukraine
is arable.

In Appendix B, the countries and territories of
Middle America and the Caribbean stand out as having
high physiologic densities compared to the moderate
physiologic densities for South America. India’s physi-
olog density is the lowest in South Asia despite its huge
population. Both China and India have populations well
over 1 billion, but according to the physiologic density,
India has much more arable land per person than China.

Figure 2.4 bottom Population Distribution
Luxor, Egypt. © Alexander B. Murphy.
People are not distributed evenly across the world or
within a country. One-third of the world’s population
lives in China and India. Yet, each country has large
expanses of land (the Himalayas in India and a vast inte-
rior desert in China) where people are absent or sparsely
distributed. In addition to studying population densi-
ties, geographers study population distributions—
descriptions of locations on the Earth’s surface where
individuals or groups (depending on the scale) live.
Geographers often represent population distributions
on dot maps, in which one dot represents a certain
number of a population. At the local scale, a dot map
of population can show each individual farm in a
sparsely populated rural area. At the global scale, the
data are much more generalized. In the following sec-
tion of this chapter, we study world population distri-
bution and density.

Where in the World Do People Live and Why? 41

World Population Distribution and Density with a rapidly growing population. As in East Asia, the
overwhelming majority of the people here are farmers,
From the beginning of humanity, people have been but in South Asia the pressure on the land is even greater.
unevenly distributed over the land. Today, contrasts In Bangladesh, over 152 million people, almost all of them
between crowded countrysides and bustling cities on the farmers, are crowded into an area about the size of Iowa.
one hand and empty reaches on the other hand have only Over large parts of Bangladesh the rural population den-
intensified. Historically, people tended to congregate in sity is between 3000 and 5000 people per square mile. By
places where they could grow food—making for a high comparison, in 2010 the population of Iowa was just about
correlation between arable land and population density. 3 million people, and the rural population density was 53
Cities began in agricultural areas, and for most of history, people per square mile.
people lived closest to the most agriculturally productive
areas. In recent history, advances in agricultural technol- Europe
ogy and in transportation of agricultural goods have
begun to change this pattern. An axis of dense population extends from Ireland and the
United Kingdom into Russia and includes large parts of
At the global scale, where one dot on a map repre- Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. It also includes
sents 100,000 people, three major clusters of population the Netherlands and Belgium, parts of France, and north-
jump out (Fig. 2.5). Each of the three largest population ern Italy. This European cluster contains over 715 million
clusters is on the Eurasian (Europe and Asia combined) inhabitants, less than half the population of the South Asia
landmass. The fourth largest is in North America. cluster. A comparison of the population and physical maps
indicates that in Europe terrain and environment are not
East Asia as closely related to population distribution as they are in
East and South Asia. For example, note the lengthy exten-
Although the distribution map (Fig. 2.5) requires no color sion in Figure 2.5, which protrudes far into Russia. Unlike
contrasts, Figure 2.6 depicts population density through the Asian extensions, which reflect fertile river valleys, the
shading: the darker the color, the larger the number of European extension reflects the orientation of Europe’s
people per unit area. The most extensive area of dark coal fields. If you look closely at the physical map, you will
shading lies in East Asia, primarily in China but also in note that comparatively dense population occurs even in
Korea and Japan. Almost one-quarter of the world’s popu- mountainous, rugged country, such as the boundary zone
lation is concentrated here—over 1.34 billion people in between Poland and its neighbors to the south. A much
China alone. greater correspondence exists between coastal and river
lowlands and high population density in Asia than in
In addition to high population density in China’s Europe generally.
large cities, ribbons of high population density extend
into the interior along the Yangtze and Yellow River val- Another contrast can be seen in the number of Euro-
leys. Farmers along China’s major river valleys produce peans who live in cities and towns. The European popula-
crops of wheat and rice to feed not only themselves but tion cluster includes numerous cities and towns, many of
also the population of major Chinese cities such as Shang- which developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution.
hai and Beijing. In Germany, 88 percent of the people live in urban
places; in the United Kingdom, 89 percent; and in France,
South Asia 74 percent. With so many people concentrated in the
cities, the rural countryside is more open and sparsely
The second major population concentration also lies in populated than in East and South Asia (where only about
Asia and is similar in many ways to that of East Asia. At the 40 percent of the people reside in cities and towns).
heart of this cluster of more than 1.5 billion people lies
India. The concentration extends into Pakistan and Ban- The three major population concentrations we have
gladesh and onto the island of Sri Lanka. Here, people discussed—East Asia, South Asia, and Europe—account
again cluster in major cities, on the coasts, and along rivers, for over 4 billion of the total world population of 7 billion
such as the Ganges and Indus. The South Asia population people. Nowhere else on the globe is there a population
cluster is growing more rapidly than the others as a result cluster even half as great as any of these. The populations
of China’s declining total fertility rate (TFR). Demogra- of South America and Africa combined barely exceed the
phers predict that by 2030, 1 out of 6 people in the world population of India alone.
will live in India.
North America
Two physical geography barriers create the bound-
aries of the South Asia population cluster: the Himalaya North America has one quite densely populated region,
Mountains to the north and the mountains west of the stretching along the urban areas of the East Coast, from
Indus River Valley in Pakistan. This is a confined region

42 Chapter 2 Population

60°

40° 40°

Tropic of Cancer AT L A N T I C
20° OCEAN

PACIFIC 20° 20°

0° Equator BRAZIL

OCEAN 20° 20°

20°
Tropic of Capricorn

40° 40° 40° 40°
60° 80° 60° 40° 60°
WORLD POPULATION 60° 160° 140° 120° 60°
DISTRIBUTION
One dot represents

100,000 people

SOUTHERN
OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.5
World Population Distribution. © H. J. de Blij, P. O. Muller, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Washington, D.C. in the south to Boston, Massachusetts ies of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City.
in the north. On Figure 2.5, the cities in this region Adding these Canadian cities to the population of meg-
agglomerate into one large urban area that includes alopolis creates a population cluster that is about one
Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York quarter the size of Europe’s population cluster. If you
City, and Boston. Urban geographers use the term mega- have lived or traveled in megalopolis, you can think
lopolis to refer to such huge urban agglomerations. The about traffic and comprehend what dense population
cities of megalopolis account for more than 20 percent of means. However, recognize that the total population of
the U.S. population. megalopolis is 2.8 percent of the East Asian population
cluster and that the 5,309 people per square mile density
Look at the global-scale map in Figure 2.6 and of New York City does not rival the density in world cit-
notice that the dense population concentration of meg- ies such as Mumbai, India, with a population density of
alopolis is stretched west into the nearby Canadian cit-

Where in the World Do People Live and Why? 43

Arctic Circle RUSSIA
EUROPE
60° 60°

AT L A N T I C JAPAN 40°
40° O C E A N

Nile CHINA PACIFIC 20°
Valley PAKISTAN
20° Tropic of Cancer
INDIA
NIGERIA BANGLADESH OCEAN

0° INDIAN 0° Equator 0°
OCEAN

Java

AT L A N T I C 20° 20° 20°
Tropic of Capricorn
20°
40° 40° 40°
OCEAN

40°

60° 0° 20° 40° 60° 60° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160° 60°

SOUTHERN OCEAN

Antarctic Circle

76,820 per square mile or Jakarta, Indonesia, with a eral dollars in per capita outlays because much federal
population density of 27,137 per square mile. government funding depends on population data. If the
population of a disadvantaged group is undercounted,
Reliability of Population Data it translates into a loss of dollars for city governments
that rely on federal government funding to pay for
When the United States planned and conducted its social services to disadvantaged groups. In addition to
2010 population census, the government ran adver- governments that provide services, advocates for disad-
tisements on television and sent mailings encouraging vantaged groups encourage people to fill out their cen-
every person in the country to be counted. State and sus forms: they are concerned that the people already in
city governments also recognized the importance of disadvantaged groups suffer when they are under-
having their citizens counted in order to gain more fed- counted in the census. Being undercounted also trans-
lates into less government representation, for the

44 Chapter 2 Population

60°

CANADA

40° UNITED STATES 40°
20°
Tropic of Cancer ATLANTIC
OCEAN

20° 20°

PACIFIC

0° Equator

WORLD POPULATION OCEAN
DENSITY
Tropic of Capricorn
Inhabitants 20° 20° 20°

Per square Per square
kilometer mile

100 or more 250 or more

50–99 125–249 40° 40° 40° 40°
25–49 60–124

10–24 25–59

1–10 2–-24 160° 140° 120° 60° 80° 60° 40°
under 1 under 2 60° 60° 60°

SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.6

World Population Density. © H. J. de Blij, P. O. Muller, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

number of congressional seats allotted to each state is The cost, organization, and reporting of a census go
based on the census counts. beyond what many countries can afford or handle.

Advocacy groups urged the census in 2000 and again Several agencies collect data on world population. The
in 2010 to sample the population and derive population sta- United Nations records official statistics that national govern-
tistics from the samples. They argued that this would more ments assemble and report. The World Bank and the Popula-
accurately represent the true number of people in the tion Reference Bureau also gather and generate data and report
United States. The United States Census Bureau contin- on the population of the world and of individual countries.
ued to conduct its census as it always has, trying to count
each individual in its borders. If you compare the population data reported by each
of these sources, you will find inconsistencies in the data.
If a prosperous country such as the United States has Data on population, growth rates, food availability, health
problems conducting an accurate census, imagine the dif- conditions, and incomes are often informed estimates
ficulties that must be overcome in less well-off countries. rather than actual counts.

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 45

Arctic Circle RUSSIA 60°
60°

EUROPE

40° JAPAN 40°

ATLANTIC Sahara Nile CHINA PACIFIC
OCEAN Va l l e y INDIA
Tropic of Cancer
20°
20°

OCEAN

NIGERIA

INDIAN Equator 0°
OCEAN

ATLANTIC Java

20° 20° 20° 20°
Tropic of Capricorn
OCEAN
40° 40°
40°

60° 0° 20° 40° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160°
60° 60° 60°
SOUTHERN OCEAN

Antarctic Circle

As we discussed in the field note at the beginning of this WHY DO POPULATIONS RISE OR FALL
chapter, the populations of China and India account for 40 IN PARTICULAR PLACES?
percent of the world currently, and India is predicted to
outpace China’s population in the 2030s. How will Figure 2.5 In the late 1960s, alarms sounded throughout the
look different 50 years from now? If you were updating this world with the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s The Popula-
textbook in 50 years, where would the largest population tion Bomb. Ehrlich and others warned that the world’s
clusters in the world be? population was increasing too quickly—and was outpac-
ing our food production! We can trace alarms over the
burgeoning world population back to 1798, when British
economist Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the
Principles of Population. In this work Malthus warned that

46 Chapter 2 Population

the world’s population was increasing faster than the food closed systems. Malthus did not foresee how globalization
supplies needed to sustain it. His reasoning was that food would aid the exchange of agricultural goods across the
supplies grew linearly, adding acreage and crops incre- world. Mercantilism, colonialism, and capitalism brought
mentally by year, whereas population grew exponentially, interaction among the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and
compounding on the year before. From 1803 to 1826, the Pacific. Through global interaction, new agricultural
Malthus issued revised editions of his essay and responded methods developed, and commodities and livestock dif-
vigorously to a barrage of criticism. fused across oceans. In the 1700s, farmers in Ireland grew
dependent on a South American crop that was well suited
The predictions Malthus made assumed food produc- for its rocky soils, the potato. Today, wealthier countries
tion is confined spatially, that what people can eat within a that lack arable land, such as Norway, can import the major-
country depends on what is grown in the country. We now ity of its foodstuffs, circumventing the limitations of their
know his assumption does not hold true; countries are not

GREENLAND
0.7

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA
0.2

40° UNITED STATES 40°

0.6

AT L A N T I C

Tropic of Cancer MEXICO BAHAMAS O C E A N
0.9
PACIFIC
OCEAN 1.4 CUBA DOMINICAN

20° 0.3 REPUBLIC 20° 20°
JAMAICA 1.5 0.3 40°
U.S. 2.1BELIZE 1.3 1.6
(Hawaii) HAITI PUERTO
GUEALTESMALAVLAAD2.O21R.22.H01O.N4 DNUICRAARSAGUA RICO
Equator BARBADOS
1.2 0.4
COSTA RICA 1.5
0.6
PANAMA TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

VENEZUELA GUYANA
1.5 1.0 SURINAME

COLOMBIA 1.1 FRENCH GUIANA
1.2

0° ECUADOR
1.5

PERU BRAZIL
1.4 1.1

WORLD 20° 20° 20° BOLIVIA
POPULATION GROWTH 1.8
Tropic of Capricorn PARAGUAY
ANNUAL NATURAL RATE OF 1.3
POPULATION INCREASE BY COUNTRY
ARGENTINA
2.5% or greater 1.0

CHILE 0.4
0.8 URUGUAY

1.5–2.4% 40° 40° 40°
0.5–1.4%

0.4% or less

Data not available 60° 160° 140° 120° 60° 60° 80° 60° 40° 60°
0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers
SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.7
World Population Growth, 2010. Annual natural rate of population increase by country.
Data from: United States Census Bureau, International Data Base, 2011.

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 47

lands. Each of these examples demonstrates that food pro- Nonetheless, Malthus’s ideas continue to attract fol-
duction is not confined spatially, as Malthus assumed. lowers. Neo-Malthusian scholars continue to share Mal-
thus’s concerns, even if they do not agree with every detail
Malthus assumed the growth of food production was of his argument, and continue to be alarmed at the con-
linear, but food production has grown exponentially as the tinuing rise in the world’s population. Neo-Malthusians
acreage under cultivation expands, mechanization of agri- point out that human suffering is now occurring on a scale
cultural production diffuses, improved strains of seed are unimagined even by Malthus. Although many demogra-
developed, and more fertilizers are used. In the twenty- phers predict the world population will stabilize later in
first century, bioengineering continues to bring new the twenty-first century, neo-Malthusians argue that over-
hybrids, genetically modified organisms, and countless population is a real problem that must be addressed now.
herbicides and pesticides that enabled exponential growth
in food production.

GREENLAND
0.7

Arctic Circle

0.6 NORWAY FINLAND

ICELAND 0.2 0.0 RUSSIA
- 0.5
60° ND0EE.T1NHGM.E0AR.M0RKAN0YSP.0WO0LE.AD0NE- DN0--.020..3B-40E.L4LAIRTLHUEASSUTTAVONIANIAIA 60°

UNITED KINGDOM
0.3

IRELAND 1.0

ATOLCAENATNI C40° S0PF.A2RINAN0CST.4EUWB- NEI0TLII.1STZ1-G.AI.20A.L0S.1.-YL10AOM.U3CBVKOSRO.CONTO-S-ZS.0T0.-......202AR-.002LE-0.0.B02P.00.2G.S.3.-.1S610ER-0L..R15E0.VH3BRE.K-U.2OC-.0LNMU0CME.EG.AK52YB..CR0PBAE.AR0UN.ITUNLOUS-GE1NR00A.K..2R56EM.AI9AYOR2S.ML2Y4D.GRE0ONIEAVOI0IAAR.R10A2G.4Q.I4A1.A0 ZERTBUAIR1RIJA.K3AUNMNZKEBAN1EAZ.KIFSA21IG0SKT..HATH37NAASNN2TIA.S0NT2A.0N KYRGYZSTAN MONGOLIA N.
PORTUGAL 1.7 1.5 KOREA JAPAN 40°
- 0.1 0.5
TAJIKISTAN CHINA - 0.3 PACIFIC
MOROCCO 1.4 0.5 0.2
WESTERN S. Tropic of Cancer
SAHARA
KOREA OCEAN
2.3
MAURITANIA ISRAEL JORDAN 2.0 BHUTAN
1.4
ALGERIA LIBYA EGYPT KUWAIT 1.2 PAKISTAN NEPAL
1.2 2.1 2.0 1.3 1.8 1.5 1.2
BAHRAIN

SAQUADTI ARU.A.E1. .4 OMAN BANGLADESH MYANMAR TAIWAN 20°
ARABIA 2.1 1.7 (BURMA) 1.8 0.2

2.4 MALI 1.6 INDIA 1.1 LAOS 2.0
3.1 1.4 PHILIPPINES
BURKINA NIGER ERITREA THAILAND VIETNAM
SENEGAL 3.6 CHAD SUDAN 2.7 0.6 1.1
2.4 2.5 2.5 YEMEN CAMBODIA
GAMBIA 2.8 1.7

2.7 2.0 GUINEA FASO 3.1 DJIBOUTI 1.7
GUINEA-BISSAU 2.7 IVORY 3.0 ETHIOPIA
COAST NIGERIA 3.2 SRI LANKA
2.7 2.0 CENTRAL SOUTH SOMALIA 1.2
SIERRA LEONE 2.7 2.1 1.9 AFRICAN REP. SUDAN 2.8
CAMEROON 2.2 BRUNEI
LIBERIA 2.1 2.5 1.5
I N D I A NGHANA 2.8 BENIN
TOGO UGANDA MALAYSIA
1.6
CONGO 3.6 KENYA Equator
EQUATORIAL GABON 2.9 2.5 SINGAPORE 0°
2.2 RWANDA 0.4 PAPUA
2.7 NEW
THE GUINEA
CONGO 2.0
GUINEA

O C E A N2.6
3.1BURUNDI INDONESIA
1.2
2.7 TANZANIA SOLOMON ISLANDS
2.1 2.4

COMOROS

AT L A N T I C 2.7 EAST TIMOR
2.0
ANGOLA ZAMBIA MALAWI FIJI
2.0 3.2 2.8 AUSTRALIA 1.5
0.6
20° 20° NAMIBIA ZIMBABWE MOÇAMBIQUE MADAGASCAR MAURITIUS 20° 20° VANUATU 20°
1.8 3.0 0.7 Tropic of Capricorn 1.4
0.9 BOTSWANA 2.7
RÉUNION NEW
1.2 CALEDONIA

1.1

OCEAN SOUTH SWAZILAND
AFRICA 1.2

0.2 LESOTHO
1.2

NEW

40° 40° 40° ZEALAND
0.7

60° 0° 20° 40° 60° 60° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160° 60°

SOUTHERN OCEAN

Antarctic Circle

48 Chapter 2 Population

Population Growth at World, Regional, The map also reveals continuing high growth rates
National, and Local Scales in Muslim countries of North Africa and Southwest
Asia. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest growth rates in
Analysis of population growth and change requires the world, but some smaller countries in this region are
attention to scale. In this section, we examine popula- increasing even faster. For some time during the second
tion growth at different scales, but we must be mindful half of the twentieth century, countries in this region
that what happens at one scale can be affected by what saw their growth rates increase even as those in most of
is happening at other scales and in other places at the the rest of the world were declining. But more recently
same time. several of the fast-growing populations, for example,
those of Iran and Morocco, have shown significant
Keeping in mind that population change in one declines. Demographers point to the correlation
place can be affected rapidly by what is going on in a between high growth rates and the low standing of
neighboring country or at the regional scale, one can gain women: where cultural traditions restrict educational
some insights by looking at population change within the and professional opportunities for women, and men
confined territory of a country (or other administrative dominate as a matter of custom, rates of natural increase
unit, such as a province or city). To calculate the natural tend to be high.
increase in a country’s population, simply subtract deaths
from births. This is a simple statistic to calculate and South Asia is the most important geographic region
comprehend. However, calculating the natural increase in the population growth rate picture. The region
misses two other key components in a country’s popula- includes the country that appears destined to overtake
tion: immigration, which along with births adds to the China as the world’s most populous: India. Only one
total population, and emigration (outmigration), which country in this region has a growth rate lower than the
along with deaths, subtracts from the total population. world average: Sri Lanka. But Sri Lanka’s total popula-
Using these four components, we can calculate demo- tion is only 20.8 million, whereas the fast-growing coun-
graphic change within a territory. tries, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have a combined
population exceeding 333 million. India, as the map
When we mapped population growth in Figure 2.7, shows, is still growing well above the world average. The
we did not take into account emigration and immigra- situation in East Asia, the world’s most populous region,
tion. Other maps and tables of population growth you is different. China’s official rate of natural growth has
see may consider emigration and immigration. Statis- fallen well below 1.0 percent (0.5 in 2010), and Japan’s
tics for each population trait can be calculated globally, population is no longer growing. Southeast Asia’s natural
by region, by country, or even by smaller locale. When growth rates remain higher, but this region’s total popu-
studying population data across scales and across the lation is much lower than either East or South Asia; key
world, we must constantly remind ourselves of exactly countries, such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam,
what is being calculated and for where. Otherwise, have declining growth rates.
many of the statistics we read will seemingly be
contradictory. South America is experiencing significant reductions
in natural population growth rates, where those rates were
Population Growth at the Regional alarmingly high just a generation ago. The region as a
and National Scales whole is still growing at 1.4 percent, but Brazil’s popula-
tion, for example, has declined from 2.9 percent in the
The world map of population growth rates (Fig. 2.7), dis- mid-1960s to 1.4 percent today. And the populations of
played by country, confirms the wide range of natural Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay are growing at rates well
increases in different geographic regions. These variations below the world average.
have existed as long as records have been kept: countries
and regions go through stages of expansion and decline at As Figure 2.7 shows, the slowest growing countries—
varying times. In the mid-twentieth century, the popula- including those with declining rates of natural popula-
tion of the former Soviet Union was growing vigorously. tion increase—lie in the economically wealthier areas
Thirty years ago, India’s population was growing at nearly of the world extending from the United States and
3.0 percent, more than most African countries; then India’s Canada across Europe and Japan. In the Southern
growth rate fell below that of Subsaharan Africa. Today, Hemisphere, Australia, New Zealand, and Uruguay are
Africa’s rate of natural increase still is higher than India’s in this category. Wealth is not the only reason for nega-
(2.4 percent to 1.3 percent), but now Subsaharan Africa tive population growth rates. Russia’s population is
faces the impact of the AIDS epidemic, which is killing declining because of social dislocation in the wake of
millions, orphaning children, reducing life expectancies, the collapse of the Soviet Union: deteriorating health
and curtailing growth rates. conditions, high rates of alcoholism and drug use, and
economic problems combine to shorten life expectancies

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 49

(especially among males) and to lower birth rates. In An aging population requires substantial social
recent years, Russia’s economy has improved, but its adjustments. Older people retire and eventually suffer
birth rate has remained low. Similar problems afflict health problems, so they need pensions and medical care.
Ukraine and Kazakhstan, two of Russia’s neighbors, The younger workers in the population must work in
which also show slow or negative growth. order to provide the tax revenues that enable the state to
pay for these services. As the proportion of older people in
Between 1900 and 2000, the world population rose a country increases, the proportion of younger people
from 1.6 billion people to 6.1 billion, and in 2011, the decreases. Thus, fewer young workers are providing tax
world population reached 7 billion. The growth in world revenues to support programs providing services for more
population is not a result of women having more children. retired people. To change the age distribution of an aging
Instead, the last century of population growth stems country and provide more taxpayers, the only answer is
largely from longer life expectancies. In 1900, global life immigration: influxes of younger workers to do the work
expectancy was 30 years, and by 2000, it was 65 years. locals are unable or unwilling to do.
Demographers now predict world population will stabi-
lize at around 10 billion people by 2100. What will happen when a country resists immigra-
tion despite an aging population? Over the next half-
Predictions of a stabilized global population are century, Japan will be an interesting case study. Japan’s
based on a combination of longer life expectancies coupled population is no longer growing, and projections indi-
with lower fertility rates. Demographers measure whether cate the Japanese population will decline as it ages. The
a population can replace its deaths with births by looking population fell from a peak of 127.84 million in 2004 to
at total fertility rates (TFRs). To reach replacement 127.51 million in 2009. Japan predicts its population will
levels—to keep a population stable over time without fall below 100 million to 95.15 million by 2050. Japan
immigration—the women of childbearing age in a country was a closed society for hundreds of years, and even
need a TFR of 2.1. The TFR reports the average number of today, the Japanese government discourages immigra-
children born to a woman of childbearing age. In 2000, tion and encourages homogeneity of the population.
more than 60 countries, containing 45 percent of the world’s More than 98 percent of the country’s population is Japa-
population, had fallen below replacement level (Fig. 2.8). nese, according to government statistics. In August
1999, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that
Demographers at the United Nations predict the the Japanese government’s efforts to maintain the homo-
TFR of the combined world will fall to 2.1 by 2030. The geneity of the population are often “lauded domestically
world TFR combines regions including Europe, where as a reason for the country’s low crime rate” and strong
fertility levels are low (Fig. 2.9), and regions including industrial economy.
Africa, where fertility levels are high. Predicting popula-
tion growth is difficult because so much depends on the In developing countries, a combination of govern-
decisions made by women of childbearing age. Demogra- ment and nongovernment organizational programs
phers and population geographers agree that two major encourage women to have fewer children. Some women
trends are happening now that will influence how much are also choosing to have fewer children because of eco-
the world population continues to grow. First is the aging nomic and social uncertainty in the developing world.
population of Europe, China, and Japan, and second is the Today, TFRs are falling almost everywhere on Earth, in
declining fertility rate in many developing countries large part because of family planning. In some countries
including Brazil and Iran. fertility rates are declining dramatically. Kenya’s TFR is
now down to 4.6; China’s fell from 6.1 to 1.75 in just 35
Both the aging population of developed countries years, and in 2010 dropped to 1.5. Once the government
and the declining fertility rates in developing countries of Iran began to allow family planning, the TFR fell from
lead to predictions that the global population will con- 6.8 in 1980 to 1.8 in 2010.
tinue to grow but at a lower rate. The United Nations
reports the proportion of older to younger people in a There was a time when a low TFR seemed to be a
country with the aging index, which is the number of desirable national objective, something that all govern-
people age 65 and older per 100 children ages 0–14. The ments would surely want. However, long-term eco-
aging index reveals an older Europe with 263 older people nomic implications and demographic projections gave
for every 100 children and a younger Africa with 37 older many governments pause. Countries need a young, vig-
people for every 100 children. orous, working-age population in order to work and pay
taxes to support the long-term needs of an aging popu-
Why are women having fewer children? In wealthier lation. When governments saw their population growth
countries, more women are choosing to stay in school, rates decline sharply, many took countermeasures.
work on careers, and marry later, delaying childbirth. The China softened its One-Child Only policy, Sweden,
impact of the aging population of Europe can be seen in Russia, and other European countries provided financial
the number of elderly people each person in the working-
age population supports through taxes.

50 Chapter 2 Population

GREENLAND

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA

40° UNITED STATES 40°

ATLANTIC

BERMUDA

Tropic of Cancer MEXICO BAHAMAS O C E A N

U.S. CUBA DOMINICAN
(Hawaii)
20° JAMAICA REPUBLIC 20° 20°
0° PACIFIC
BELIZE HAITI PUERTO
OCEAN
HONDURAS RICO
Equator
GUATEMALA NICARAGUA BARBADOS
EL SALVADOR

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

COSTA RICA VENEZUELA SURINAME
PANAMA

COLOMBIA FRENCH GUIANA

GUYANA

ECUADOR

PERU BRAZIL

COUNTRIES WITH TOTAL 20° 20° 20° BOLIVIA
FERTILITY RATE BELOW PARAGUAY
REPLACEMENT LEVEL Tropic of Capricorn

TFR fell below replacement CHILE URUGUAY
level before 1989 ARGENTINA

TFR fell below replacement 40° 40° 40° 40°
level in or after 1989 60° 60°

TFR above replacement
level

60° 160° 140° 120° 60° 80° 60° 40°

SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.8
Year That Total Fertility Rate Among Women Fell Below Replacement Levels. Data
from: World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2011.

incentives like long maternity leaves and state-paid day- TFRs and population decline? Despite declining popu-
care to prospective mothers, and even the Japanese lation growth rates and even negative growth rates
found themselves in a national debate over family size (growth rates below 0.0) in a number of the world’s
and immigration. Still, such programs and debates have countries, the global population continues to rise. The
so far had limited success in encouraging sustained pop- worldwide TFR was 2.6 in 2007, above the replacement
ulation growth. level of 2.1. Although the population bomb Ehrlich
warned of is no longer ticking at the same rapid pace, the
How can the worldwide population continue to worldwide population continues to grow. The low TFRs
increase when so many countries are experiencing low

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 51

GREENLAND

Arctic Circle

FINLAND

60° ICELAND NORWAY ESTONIA RUSSIA 60°
UNITED KINGDOM SWEDEN LATVIA

DENMARK LITHUANIA

IRELAND NETH. BELARUS

BELG. GER. POLAND
CZ. REP.
ATLANTIC LUX. SLVK. UKRAINE KAZAKHSTAN
OCEAN
SWITZ. AUST.HUNG. MOLDOVA MONGOLIA
PORTUGAL FRANCE
ROM. CHINA
SLOV.
SERB.
CRO. BULG. UZBEKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN
ITALY BOS. GEORGIA KYRGYZSTAN N.
MONT. TAJIKISTAN KOREA
40° SPAIN MACE. ARMENIA JAPAN 40°
KOS. S.
GREECE TURKEY AZERBAIJAN KOREA PACIFIC
ALB.
Tropic of Cancer
TUNISIA CYPRUS SYRIA AFGHANISTAN
IRAN OCEAN
MOROCCO LEBANON IRAQ
Equator
ISRAEL JORDAN BHUTAN
EGYPT NEPAL PAPUA
ALGERIA LIBYA KUWAIT PAKISTAN NEW
GUINEA
WESTERN BAHRAIN
SAHARA
QATAR BANGLADESH TAIWAN
MAURITANIA INDIA
SAUDI U.A.E. MYANMAR
(BURMA) LAOS
ARABIA OMAN 20°

MALI NIGER VIETNAM
NIGERIA THAILAND
SENEGAL CHAD SUDAN ERITREA YEMEN
GAMBIA CAMBODIA
GUINEA-BISSAU GUINEA BURKINA PHILIPPINES
FASO BRUNEI
DJIBOUTI
IVORY CENTRAL SOUTH ETHIOPIA SRI LANKA
COAST AFRICAN REP. SUDAN
SIERRA LEONE

LIBERIA TOGO CAMEROON SOMALIA INDIAN
GHANA BENIN GABON CONGO
UGANDA MALAYSIA 0°
EQUATORIAL KENYA SINGAPORE
FIJI
RWANDA
20°
GUINEA THE BURUNDI OCEAN
CONGO TANZANIA
INDONESIA

ATLANTIC ANGOLA COMOROS EAST TIMOR
MALAWI
ZAMBIA AUSTRALIA

20° 20° ZIMBABWE MOÇAMBIQUE MADAGASCAR MAURITIUS 20° 20° VANUATU
Tropic of Capricorn NEW
NAMIBIA CALEDONIA

BOTSWANA

OCEAN SOUTH SWAZILAND
AFRICA LESOTHO

NEW
ZEALAND
40° 40° 40°

60° 0° 20° 40° 60° 60° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160° 60°

SOUTHERN OCEAN

Antarctic Circle

and low population growth rates enumerated in this cent, compounded annually (exponentially), it would
chapter are dwarfed by continued additions to the popu- take about seven years to double to $200, and then
lation in countries where growth rates are still relatively another seven years to become $400, and then another
high, such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and seven years to become $800. When the growth rate is
Nigeria. 10 percent, therefore, the doubling time is around
seven years.
One way to easily grasp the growth rate in world
population is to compare the population’s rate of growth Two thousand years ago, the world’s population was
to its doubling time. Every rate of growth has a dou- an estimated 250 million. More than 16 centuries passed
bling time; for example, if you invest $100 at 10 per- before this total had doubled to 500 million, the estimated

52 Chapter 2 Population

Field Note so many young children in Subsaharan Africa, the majority
of the inhabitants I encountered in Bordeaux were adults. I
“My mind was on wine. I was in Bordeaux, France, walking turned to my friend and asked, ‘Where are all the children?’
down the street to the Bordeaux Wines Museum (Musée He looked around, pointed, and replied, ‘There goes one
des Vins de Bordeaux) with a friend from the city. Hav- now!’ In Bordeaux, in Paris, in all of France and the rest of
ing just flown from Dakar, Senegal, after spending several Europe, there are fewer children and populations are aging
weeks in Subsaharan Africa, I found my current surround- (Fig. 2.9).”
ings strikingly different. Observing the buildings and the
people around me, I noticed that after having been among

Figure 2.9
Bordeaux, France. © H. J. de Blij.

population in 1650. Just 170 years later, in 1820 (when falling in many places, fears of global population doubling
Malthus was still writing), the population had doubled quickly are definitely subsiding. Many indicators, such as
again, to 1 billion (Fig. 2.10). And barely more than a cen- the slowing of the doubling time, suggest that the worst
tury after this, in 1930, it reached 2 billion. The doubling may be over, that the explosive population growth of the
time was down to 100 years and dropping fast; the popu- twentieth century will be followed by a marked and accel-
lation explosion was in full gear. Only 45 years elapsed erating slowdown during the twenty-first century. The
during the next doubling, to 4 billion (1975). During the global growth rate is now down to 1.4 percent, perhaps
mid-1980s, when the rate declined to 1.8 percent, the slightly lower. But today the world’s population is 7 bil-
doubling slowed to 39 years. Today, world population is lion, yielding an increase in world population that still
doubling in 54 years, and the continuing slowdown in the exceeds 80 million annually at this growth rate.
estimated doubling rate is one of the bright spots in the
problematic demographic picture. As a result of falling TFRs in both the developing
and developed world, demographers no longer caution
For demographers and population geographers who about doubling time. With women having fewer chil-
study global population growth today, the concept of dou- dren, many demographers are predicting the world may
bling time is losing much of its punch. With populations reach zero population growth in the next 50 years. In

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 53

Population (billions)10 2045 Population Growth within Countries
9 9 billion
8 The information provided in Figure 2.7 is based on
7 2027 countrywide statistics. Significant demographic varia-
6 8 billion tions also occur within countries. Political geographers
call countries states. State governments partition their
5 2012 countries into administrative units called States (United
4 7 billion States), provinces (Canada), departments (France) or the
like. In India, for example, States in the north record
3 2000 population growth rates far above the national average
2 6 billion (Fig. 2.11). But other States, in the west and southwest
1 0.5 region, have populations that are growing much more
1975 slowly. Women in southern India have higher female lit-
billion 4 billion eracy, greater land ownership rates, better access to
0 health care, and more access to birth control methods.
1930 All of these factors keep the growth rates lower in the
2 billion south than the north of India.

1820 In the 1950s, India became the first country in the
1 billion world to institute a population planning program, before
the fear of worldwide overpopulation and a global popula-
1650 tion bomb spread. In the 1960s, when census numbers
1700 revealed the extreme growth rates in the north, the Indian
1750 government instituted a national population planning
1800 program, encouraging States to join.
1850
1900 Despite the federal effort, rapid population growth
1950 continues, especially in the northern and eastern States.
2000 India is a federation of 28 States and 7 union territories,
2050 and the individual States differ greatly both culturally and
politically. Social problems arose in some of the States
Time where governments pursued the population planning
campaign vigorously. During the 1970s, the Indian gov-
Figure 2.10 ernment began a policy of forced sterilization of any man
Population Growth, 1650 to 2050. The dashed line indi- with three or more children. The State of Maharashtra
cates one estimate of global population growth for the next 50 sterilized 3.7 million people before public opposition led
years. Data from: United States Census Bureau, International to rioting, and the government abandoned the program
Data Base, 2011. (Fig. 2.12). Other States also engaged in compulsory ster-
ilization programs, with heavy social and political costs—
fact, current predictions point to zero population growth eventually, 22.5 million people were sterilized.
globally by the end of the century, with population rising
to 9.3 billion by 2050 and then leveling off around The horrors of the forced sterilization program of
10 billion people. the 1970s are haunting India again. In 2004, three dis-
tricts in the State of Uttar Pradesh (India’s most popu-
No single factor can explain the variations shown lous State with over 170 million people) instituted a
in Figure 2.7. Economic prosperity as well as social dis- policy of exchanging gun licenses for sterilization. The
location reduce natural population growth rates. Eco- policy allowed for a shotgun license in exchange for the
nomic well-being, associated with urbanization, higher sterilization of two people and a revolver license in
levels of education, later marriage, family planning, and exchange for the sterilization of five people. Abuse
other factors, lowers population growth. In the table began almost immediately, with wealthy landowners
presented in Appendix B, compare the indices for natu- sterilizing their laborers in exchange for gun licenses.
ral population increase and the percentage of the popu- Before the “guns for sterilization” policy, districts in
lation that is urbanized. In general, the higher the Uttar Pradesh encouraged sterilization by providing
population’s level of urbanization, the lower its natural access to housing and extra food for people who agreed
increase. Cultural traditions also influence rates of pop- to be sterilized.
ulation growth, Religion, for example, has a powerful
impact on family planning and thus on growth rates, not Today, most Indian State governments are using
only in Islamic countries but also in traditional Chris- advertising and persuasion—not guns for sterilization—to
tian societies (note the Roman Catholic Philippines’ encourage families to have fewer children. Posters urging
growth rate) and in Hindu-dominated communities
(such as India).

54 Chapter 2 Population

AFGHANISTAN JAMMU 0 250 500 750 Kilometers
AND 0 250 500 Miles
Islamabad KASHMIR
CHINA
HIMACHAL
Lahore PRADESH

PAKISTAN PUNJAB UTTARAKHAND

Indus River HARYANA Yarlung River ARUNACHAL
PRADESH
DELHI New SIKKIM
Delhi NEPAL BHUTAN

UTTAR

RAJASTHAN PRADESH ASSAM NAGALAND

Karachi Varanasi Patna MEGHALAYA

BIHARGanges R. BANGLADESH MANIPUR

GUJARAT INDIA JHARKHAND WEST Dacca TRIPURA
BENGAL MIZORAM
Ahmadabad Narmada River
MYANMAR
MADHYA PRADESH CHHATTISGARH Kolkata (BURMA)
(Calcutta)
20° MAHARASHTRA ORISSA
Bay of
Godavari R.
Bengal

Mumbai

Arabian Hyderabad
Sea
Krishna River PUDUCHERRY INDIA:
15° RECENT POPULATION
GOA ANDHRA
PRADESH Chennai GROWTH RATES
BY STATE
KARNATAKA

Bangalore

PUDUCHERRY KERALA TAMIL PUDUCHERRY 25% or greater
NADU
LAKSHADWEEP 20A–n2d4am.9a%n
Cauvery Islands
(INDIA)
Figure 2.11 10° 15–19.9%
Population Growth Rates in India, 2001–
2011. Data from: India Census Bureau, 70° MALDIVES 75° SRI 85° underN1ic5o%bar
2011. LANKA Islands

Figure 2.12
Maharashtra, India. Above
the entrance to a suite of medi-
cal offices is a sign announcing
that the “free family planning
sterilization operation” closed in
1996. © H. J. de Blij.

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 55

people to have small families are everywhere, and the gov- the kind of shift that Britain experienced, but other places
ernment supports a network of family planning clinics either have gone through a similar shift or are in the pro-
even in the remotest villages. The southern States con- cess of doing so. The initial low-growth phase, which in
tinue to report the lowest growth rates, correlating with all places endured for most of human history, is marked by
higher wealth and higher education levels and literacy high birth rates and equally high death rates. In this phase,
rates of females in these States. The eastern and northern epidemics and plagues keep the death rates high among all
States, the poorer regions of India, continue to report the sectors of the population—in some cases so high that they
highest growth rates. exceed birth rates. For Great Britain and the rest of
Europe, death rates exceeded birth rates during the
Our world map of growth rates is a global overview, a bubonic plague (the Black Death) of the 1300s, which hit
mere introduction to the complexities of the geography of in waves beginning in Crimea on the Black Sea, diffusing
population. The example of India demonstrates that what through trade to Sicily and other Mediterranean islands,
we see at the scale of a world map does not give us the and moving through contagious diffusion and the travel of
complete story of what is happening within each country rats (which hosted the vector, the flea, that spread the
or region of the world. Both India and China have over 1 plague) north from the Mediterranean.
billion people, but as a result of the higher growth rates in
India (1.64) and declining growth rates in China (.5), Once the plague hit a region, it was likely to return
demographers predict India will become the most popu- within a few years time, creating another wave of human suf-
lated country in the world in 2030. fering. Estimates of plague deaths vary between one-quarter
and one-half of the population, with the highest death rates
The Demographic Transition recorded in the West (where trade among regions was the
greatest) and the lowest in the East (where cooler climates
The high population growth rates now occurring in many and less connected populations delayed diffusion). Across
poorer countries are not necessarily permanent. In Europe, many cities and towns were left decimated. Histo-
Europe, population growth changed several times in the rians estimate the population of Great Britain fell from
last three centuries. Demographers used data on baptisms nearly 4 million when the plague began to just over 2 mil-
and funerals from churches in Great Britain to study lion when it ended.
changes in birth and death rates of the population. They
expected the rate of natural increase of the population— Famines also limited population growth. A famine in
the difference between the number of births and the num- Europe just prior to the plague likely facilitated the diffu-
ber of deaths—to vary over different periods of time. sion of the disease by weakening the people. Records of
Demographers calculated the crude birth rate (CBR), famines in India and China during the eighteenth and nine-
the number of live births per year per thousand people in teenth centuries document millions of people perishing. At
the population (Fig. 2.13), and the crude death rate other times, destructive wars largely wiped out population
(CDR), the number of deaths per year per thousand peo- gains. Charts of world population growth show an increase
ple (Fig. 2.14). in the world’s population from 250 million people 2000
years ago to 500 million people in 1650 and 1 billion people
The church data revealed that before the Industrial in 1820. However, the lines connecting these points in time
Revolution began in Great Britain in the 1750s, the coun- should not trend steadily upward. Rather, they turn up
try experienced high birth rates and high death rates, and down frequently, reflecting the impacts of disease, crop
with small differences between the two. The result was failures, and wars.
low population growth. After industrialization began, the
death rates in Great Britain began to fall as a result of bet- The beginning of the Industrial Revolution ush-
ter and more stable access to food and improved access to ered in a period of accelerating population growth in
increasingly effective medicines. With a rapidly falling Europe. Before workers could move from farms to facto-
death rate and a birth rate that remained high, Britain’s ries, a revolution in agriculture had to occur. The eigh-
population explosion took place. From the late 1800s teenth century marked the Second Agricultural
through two world wars in the 1900s, death rates contin- Revolution, so named because the first occurred thou-
ued to fall and birth rates began to fall, but stayed higher sands of years earlier (see Chapter 11). During the Sec-
than death rates, resulting in continued population ond Agricultural Revolution, farmers improved seed
growth but at a slower rate. Finally, in recent history, selection, practiced new methods of crop rotation, selec-
both the birth rate and death rate in Great Britain tively bred livestock to increase production and quality,
declined to low levels, resulting in slow or stabilized pop- employed new technology such as the seed drill,
ulation growth. expanded storage capacities, and consolidated landhold-
ings for greater efficiencies. With more efficient farming
Demographers call the shift in population growth methods, the number of people needed in farming
the demographic transition. The transition is typically decreased and the food supply increased, thereby sup-
modeled as shown in Figure 2.15. The model is based on porting a higher population overall.

56 Chapter 2 Population

GREENLAND
15

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA
10

40° UNITED STATES 40°
14
AT L A N T I C

Tropic of Cancer MEXICO BAHAMAS O C E A N
16
PA C I F I C
OCEAN 19 CUBA DOMINICAN

20° JAMAICA 10 REPUBLIC 20° 20°
20 11
24
26 BELIZE 19 HAITI PUERTO
U.S. HONDURAS RICO
(Hawaii) 27 25
GUATEMALA 18 BARBADOS
Equator 20 NICARAGUA 12
EL SALVADOR
17 14 TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
COSTA RICA 19
PANAMA VENEZUELA SURINAME
20 17 16 FRENCH GUIANA

COLOMBIA
18 GUYANA

0° ECUADOR
20

PERU BRAZIL
19 18

WORLD 20° 20° 20° BOLIVIA
25
BIRTH RATE Tropic of Capricorn PARAGUAY
18
per 1,000 population

35 or more ARGENTINA 14
18 URUGUAY

CHILE
14

25–34 40° 40° 40° 40°
15–24 60°

Under 15

Data not available 160° 140° 120° 60° 80° 60° 40°
60° 60°

SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.13

Crude Birth Rate. Number of Births in a year per 1000 People. Data from: United States

Census Bureau, International Data Base, 2011.

In the 1800s, as the Industrial Revolution diffused Birth rates fell at a slower rate, leading to a popula-
through continental Europe, other advances also helped tion explosion. The increase in the rate of population
lower death rates. Sanitation facilities made towns and growth in Europe spurred waves of migration. Millions of
cities safer from epidemics, and modern medical prac- people left the squalid, crowded industrial cities (and farms
tices diffused. Disease prevention through vaccination as well) to emigrate to other parts of the world. They were
introduced a new era in public health. The combined not the first to make this journey. Adventurers, explorers,
improvements in food supply and medical practice merchants, and colonists had gone before them. In a major
resulted in a drastic reduction in death rates. Before 1750 wave of colonization from 1500 through the 1700s, Euro-
death rates in Europe probably averaged 35 per 1000 pean migrants decimated native populations through con-
(birth rates averaged under 40), but by 1850 the death quest, slavery, and the introduction of diseases against
rate was down to about 16 per 1000. which the local people had no natural immunity.

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 57

GREENLAND
15

Arctic Circle

MO6R0OP°COCROTUUIRG1NIECA91ILETL0AELNADDNKDS1IN1P13F6GA1RIDANON11MCTS22EUBWNE1INTNLI0DSZ1EG1O.IE7TIA.0RT1NHGAW0S9M.LEL8A1CAAYORMBYU0RRSV.OOC1S1OKEKS1NZ1T1.OR9.8..TSB991SR.P..10AWE9O01HLP1E2LB.1US11GDA.90N1L09RENV2GEKND.MER1F.99LC1O0IA1NCE0UECMB11LYBBEKU1.10AP.A1LER0TNR1GNLAU0UD.LAOIRNSILRTNKEA1UHEET12SAUSYV01MRATI215AMNGOOS782IEENLYA4DONRIAOIRIAAGVIR1AAIAA111Z3Q9E1R8BAIJTAUNIRR1UKA9ZMNBEKENAKIAZISSFATTGK12A1AHH7N0N7ASN3TRIA8STNUAT1JASI1NKSIKSIAYTRAGNY2Z6STAN 24 60°

AOTLCAENATNIC40° MONGOLIA N. JAPAN 40°
21 KOREA
15 7
CHINA
12 S. 9
KOREA
BHUTAN
ISRAEL JORDAN 21 NEPAL PA C I F I C
EGYPT 22 19
ALGERIA LIBYA 25 KUWAIT 15 PAKISTAN BANGLADESH Tropic of Cancer
17 24 16 25
WESTERN BAHRAIN OCEAN
SAHARA 32
QATAR 16 9 TAIWAN
SAUDI U.A.E.
ARABIA 23 MYANMAR 26
19 (BURMA) LAOS
MAURITANIA OMAN INDIA 19 20°
24 21
33 MALI
SENEGAL 46 NIGER CHAD ERITREA 34 THAILAND VIETNAM 25
51 YEMEN 13 17 PHILIPPINES
SUDAN 33 CAMBODIA
25
GAMBIA 37 BURKINA 39 36 DJIBOUTI 25

34 35 GUINEA FASO 44
GUINEA-BISSAU IVORY 28 38
37 COAST
39 NIGERIA CENTRAL SOUTH SRI LANKA
31 36 AFRICAN REP. SUDAN ETHIOPIA
SIERRA LEONE 37 43 17 BRUNEI
CAMEROON 37 36 SOMALIA 18
LIBERIA TOGO 33 43 IN D I A N
UGANDA MALAYSIA
GHANA 36 BENIN 48 21
RWANDA
EQUATORIAL GABON CONGO KENYA SINGAPORE Equator 0°
GUINEA 35 41 37 34 9
35 PAPUA FIJI
THE 41BURUNDI OCEAN IN D O N E S I A NEW SOLOMON 21
CONGO 18 GUINEA ISLANDS
38 TANZANIA 26 20°
33 28

COMOROS EAST TIMOR 26

AT L A N T I C 34 AUSTRALIA
12
ANGOLA ZAMBIA 41 MALAWI
43 44

20° 20° NAMIBIA ZIMBABWE MOC¸ AMBIQUE MADAGASCAR MAURITIUS 20° 20° VANUATU
32 38 14 Tropic of Capricorn 22

22 BOTSWANA 40 NEW
CALEDONIA
22
16

OCEAN SOUTH 27
AFRICA SWAZILAND

20 27

LESOTHO

NEW

ZEALAND
14
40° 40° 40°

0° 20° 40° 60° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160°
60° 60° 60°
OCEAN
SOUTHERN

Antarctic Circle

When a second wave of European colonization began first half of the 1900s. The cause was a significant
in Africa and Asia during the late 1800s, the Europeans decline in birth rates. Populations continued to grow,
brought with them their newfound methods of sanitation but at a much slower rate. Many countries in Latin
and medical techniques, and these had the opposite effect. America and Asia experienced falling birth rates later in
By the mid-1900s, declining death rates in Africa, India, the twentieth century, which helped slow the global
and South America brought rapid population increases to population growth rate.
these regions. At this point, new alarms and cautions of
worldwide overpopulation rang. Why have birth rates declined? Throughout the
1900s, lower birth rates arrived first in countries with
Although the global alarms continued to ring, they greater urbanization, wealth, and medical advances. As
subsided for populations in Europe and North America more and more people moved to cities, both the econom-
when population growth rates began to decline in the ics and the culture of large families changed. Instead of

58 Chapter 2 Population

GREENLAND 8

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA
8

40° UNITED STATES 40°
8
AT L A N T I C

BERMUDA
8

Tropic of Cancer MEXICO O C E A NBAHAMAS
7
PA C I F I C
OCEAN 5 CUBA DOMINICAN
8
20° JAMAICA REPUBLIC 20° 20°
0° 7 8 48
U.S. 6 BELIZE HAITI
(Hawaii) 5 PUERTO
GUATEMALA 6 HONDURAS RICO
Equator EL SALVADOR 5
BARBADOS
5 NICARAGUA 8

4 8 TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
COSTA RICA 5
PANAMA VENEZUELA SURINAME
57 6 FRENCH GUIANA

COLOMBIA GUYANA
5

ECUADOR
5

PERU BRAZIL
6 6

WORLD 20° Tropic of Capricorn 20° 20° BOLIVIA
MORTALITY RATE 40° 40° 40° 7
PARAGUAY
deaths per 1,000 population 5

Over 17 CHILE ARGENTINA 10
6 7 URUGUAY
13–17
40°
7–12

Under 7

Data not available 160° 140° 120° 80° 60° 40°
60° 60° 60° 60°

SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.14

Crude Death Rate: Number of Deaths in a Year per 1000 People. Data from: United States

Census Bureau, International Data Base, 2011.

lending a hand on the family farm, children in urban decisions by many women to have fewer or no children or
areas were often seen as a drain on the family finances. At to start having children at a later age have all lowered
the same time, new opportunities—especially for women— birth rates within a country.
were not always compatible with large families. Hence,
many women delayed marriage and childbearing. Medical In some parts of the world, countries are now experi-
advances lowered infant and child mortality rates, lessen- encing exceptionally low TFRs. Low birth rates along
ing the sense that multiple children were necessary to with low death rates put the countries in a position of neg-
sustain a family. In recent history, the diffusion of contra- ligible, or even negative, population growth. Birth rates
ceptives, the accessibility to abortions, and conscious are lowest in the countries where women are the most
educated and most involved in the labor force.

Why Do Populations Rise or Fall in Particular Places? 59

8 GREENLAND

Arctic Circle
AOT LCAENATNI CMO6R0O°PCOCROTUUIRGNI5ECA1ILETL1AELNADDNKDSIN7PF6GA9RIDANONMC9T9SEUBWNE1INTNLI1DSZEGO6.I9IETTA.R19NHAGW0SML.1ELAAYC1A1ORMBUYR0RSV.OOSCOKE.9K9STNZ.OR17..1.T1SB11S0R.1P1..0AWE192O16LP3E0LB.HS1GD1A.1LU0R49ENV1NEKND1GMERF1.4.1LC1OIA11NC2E4UECMB14LYB1BEKU.01AP4.ALER1TN1GRNLAU6D.ULAOIRNILSRTNKEAUH7EETASU6YSVRM7ATIMA3NGOOS6EIE4NLYANDORIAIOIRAAGVIR1AAI0AA9ZQ5ER8BAITJUARNIKR6MANUENZKBIASEAZTKFAAGIKSN69HHTAS5ANTN1RIA7SNU7T1AST6NASJI7IAKKISYTRAGNYZSTAN
60°

MONGOLIA
6

40° N. JAPAN 40°
KOREA
CHINA 10
7 9
S.6

KOREA

ISRAEL JORDAN 2 PAKISTAN NEPAL BHUTAN PA C I F I C
EGYPT 7 77
ALGERIA LIBYA 5 KUWAIT 3 Tropic of Cancer
5 3 2
WESTERN BAHRAIN OCEAN
SAHARA 9
QATAR 2 BANGLADESH 7 TAIWAN
SAUDI U.A.E. 6
MYANMAR
ARABIA (BURMA) 8
MAURITANIA 3 OMAN INDIA 8 LAOS 20°
9 MALI 7 4 8
14
SENEGAL NIGER CHAD SUDAN ERITREA YEMEN IN D I A N THAILAND VIETNAM 5
14 8 OCEAN 76 PHILIPPINES
16 11 CAMBODIA
GAMBIA 9 BURKINA 8

8 15 GUINEA FASO 13 DJIBOUTI 8 BRUNEI
GUINEA-BISSAU 3
11 9 NIGERIA SRI LANKA
IVORY 16 6 MALAYSIA
SIERRA LEONE 12 11 COAST 9 CENTRAL SOUTH ETHIOPIA 5
AFRICAN REP. SUDAN 11
10 CAMEROON 15 SOMALIA SINGAPORE
LIBERIA 11 15 5
TOGO 12 UGANDA
GHANA 8 BENIN
12
EQUATORIAL GABON CONGO RWANDA KENYA Equator 0°
GUINEA 13 12 9
9 10 PAPUA FIJI
NEW 6
THE 10 BURUNDI GUINEA SOLOMON
CONGO ISLANDS 20°
11 TANZANIA IN D O N E S I A 7
12 6 4

AT L A N T I C ANGOLA ZAMBIA COMOROS EAST TIMOR 6 VANUATU
23 13 7 7
20° AUSTRALIA
13 MALAWI 7 NEW
CALEDONIA
20° NAMIBIA ZIMBABWE MOC¸ AMBIQUE MADAGASCAR MAURITIUS 20° 20°
14 13 8 7 Tropic of Capricorn 5

13 BOTSWANA
11

OCEAN 15
SWAZILAND

SOUTH 15
AFRICA LESOTHO

17

NEW
ZEALAND

40° 40° 40° 7

0° 20° 40° 60° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160°
60° 60° 60°
OCEAN
SOUTHERN

Antarctic Circle

Future Population Growth countries will stop growing at some time during the
twenty-first century, reaching a so-called stationary pop-
It may be unwise to assume that the demographic cycles of ulation level (SPL). This would mean that the world’s
all countries will follow the sequence that occurred in population would stabilize and that the major problems to
industrializing Europe or to believe that the still-significant be faced would involve the aged rather than the young.
population growth currently taking place in Bangladesh,
Mexico, and numerous other countries will simply sub- Such predictions require frequent revision, how-
side. Nonetheless, many agencies monitoring global pop- ever, and anticipated dates for population stabilization
ulation suggest that the populations of most (if not all) are often moved back. Only a few years ago, the United
Nations predicted world population would stabilize at

60 Chapter 2 Population

MODEL OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC CYCLE

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5

50

Per thousand per year 40 Birth Rat e
30

20 Death Rate
10

Figure 2.15 0 Increasing Population Decreasing Declining
The Demographic Transition Model. Low growth growth explosion growth population
Five stages of the demographic transition. 18th Century
19th Century 20th Century 21st Century Future
© H. J. de Blij, P. O. Muller, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

10 billion in 200 years. The United Nations changed its WHY DOES POPULATION COMPOSITION
predictions based on lower fertility rates in many coun- MATTER?
tries. All agencies reporting population predictions
have to revise their predictions periodically. In the late Maps showing the regional distribution and density
1980s, for example, the World Bank predicted that the of populations tell us about the number of people in coun-
United States would reach SPL in 2035 with 276 mil- tries or regions, but they cannot reveal two other aspects
lion inhabitants. Brazil’s population would stabilize at of those populations: the number of men and women and
353 million in 2070, Mexico’s at 254 million in 2075, their ages. These aspects of population, the population
and China’s at 1.4 billion in 2090. India, destined to composition, are important because a populous country
become the world’s most populous country, would where half the population is very young has quite different
reach SPL at 1.6 billion in 2150. problems than a populous country where a large propor-
tion of the population is elderly. When geographers study
Today these figures are unrealistic. China’s popula- populations, therefore, they are concerned not only with
tion passed the 1.2 billion mark in 1994, and India’s spatial distribution and growth rates but also with popula-
reached 1 billion in 1998. If we were to project an optimis- tion composition.
tic decline in growth rates for both countries, China’s
population would “stabilize” at 1.4 billion in 2025 and The composition is the structure of a population in
India’s at 1.7 billion in 2060, according to a 2011 United terms of age, sex, and other properties such as marital
Nations report. But population increase is a cyclical phe- status and education. Age and sex are key indicators of
nomenon, and overall declines mask lags and spurts as population composition, and demographers and geogra-
well as regional disparities. phers use population pyramids to represent these traits
visually.
Examine Appendix B at the end of the book. Study the
growth rate column. Which countries have the highest The population pyramid displays the percentages of
growth rates? Determine what stage of the demographic each age group in the total population (normally five-year
transition these countries are in, and hypothesize what may increments) by a horizontal bar whose length represents
lead them to the next stage. its share. Males in the group are to the left of the center
line, females to the right.

A population pyramid can instantly convey the
demographic situation in a country. In poorer coun-
tries, where birth and death rates generally remain
high, the pyramid looks like an evergreen tree, with
wide branches at the base and short ones near the top

Why Does Population Composition Matter? 61

Poorer Countries, Niger, Guatemala,
2010 2010 2010

Males Females Males Females Males Females
80+ ........................ 80+ ......................... 80+ .........................
70–74 ..................... 70–74 ......................... 70–74 ........................
60–64 .................. 60–64 ........................ 60–64 .....................
50–54 .............. 50–54 ....................... 50–54 ...................
40–44 ........ 40–44 ...................... 40–44 ...................
30–34 ...... 30–34 ................... 30–34 ..............
20–24 .. 20–24 ................. 20–24 ......
10–14 . 10–14 ........... 10–14 ..
0–4 .... 0–4 .
0–4

10 8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10 24 20 16 12 8 4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 141210 8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 101214

% of population % of population % of population

Figure 2.16
Age–Sex Population Pyramids for Countries with High Population Growth Rates.
Countries with high total fertility rates, high infant mortality rates and low life expectancies will
have population pyramids with wide bases and narrow tops. Data from: United Nations, World
Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision.

(Fig. 2.16). The youngest age groups have the largest In countries with economic wealth, pyramid shapes
share of the population; in the composite pyramid change. Families become smaller, children fewer. A
shown here, the three groups up to age 14 account for composite population pyramid for wealthier countries
more than 30 percent of the population. Older people, looks like a slightly lopsided vase, with the largest com-
in the three highest age groups, represent only about ponents of the population not at the bottom but in the
4 percent of the total. Slight variations of this pyramidal middle. The middle-age bulge is moving upward,
shape mark the population structure of such countries reflecting the aging of the population (Fig. 2.17) and the
as Pakistan, Yemen, Guatemala, The Congo, and Laos. declining TFR. Countries with low TFR and high
From age group 15 to 19 upward, each group is smaller wealth, such as Italy, France, and Sweden, fit into this
than the one below it. pyramid model.

Wealthier Countries, France, United States,
2010 2010 2010

Males Females Males Females Males Females
80+ ................... 80+ .................. 80+ ....................
70–74 .............. 70–74 .............. 70–74 ................
60–64 ...... 60–64 ..... 60–64 ........
50–54 .. 50–54 .... 50–54 ...
40–44 .. 40–44 .. 40–44 ...
30–34 .. 30–34 .... 30–34 ...
20–24 ... 20–24 .... 20–24 ..
10–14 ....... 10–14 ..... 10–14 ...
0–4 ....... 0–4 .... 0–4 ...

86420246 8 86420246 8 86420246 8

% of population % of population % of population

Figure 2.17
Age–Sex Population Pyramids for Countries with Low Population Growth Rates.
Countries with lower total fertility rates and longer life expectancies have population pyramids
shaped more uniformly throughout. Data from: United Nations, World Population Prospects:
The 2010 Revision.

62 Chapter 2 Population

HOW DOES THE GEOGRAPHY OF HEALTH Infant Mortality
INFLUENCE POPULATION DYNAMICS?
One of the leading measures of the condition of a coun-
The condition of a country’s population requires much try’s population is the infant mortality rate (IMR). Infant
more than simply knowing the total population or the growth mortality is recorded as a baby’s death during the first year
rate. Also of significance is the welfare of the country’s people following its birth (unlike child mortality, which records
across regions, ethnicities, or social classes. Among the most death between ages 1 and 5). Infant mortality is normally
important influences on population dynamics are geographical given as the number of cases per thousand, that is, per
differences in sanitation, the prevalence of diseases, and the thousand live births.
availability of health care.
Infant and child mortality reflect the overall health
of a society. High infant mortality has a variety of causes,

GREENLAND
10

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA
5

40° UNITED STATES 40°
6
AT L A N T I C

3
BERMUDA

BAHAMAS OC E A N
14
Tropic of Cancer MEXICO
20°
17 CUBA DOMINICAN
U.S.
(Hawaii) JAMAICA 5 REPUBLIC 20° 20°
22 8 40°
22 BELIZE 15 54 BARBADOS
HAITI PUERTO 12
HONDURAS RICO
26 20 28 TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
GUATEMALA 20
23 NICARAGUA
EL SALVADOR

10
COSTA RICA 12
PA C I F I C PANAMA VENEZUELA SURINAME
21
0° Equator 37 18 FRENCH GUIANA
COLOMBIA GUYANA
OCEAN 16

ECUADOR
20

PERU BRAZIL
22 21

WORLD INFANT 20° 20° 20° BOLIVIA
42
MORTALITY Tropic of Capricorn
PARAGUAY
Infant deaths per 1,000 live births 23

100 or more ARGENTINA
11
10
CHILE URUGUAY
7

45–99 40° 40° 40°
15–44

Below 15

Data not available 160° 140° 120° 80° 60° 40°
60° 60° 60° 60°

SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.18

Infant Mortality Rate, 2011. Data from: CIA World Fact book, 2011 estimate.

How Does the Geography of Health Influence Population Dynamics? 63

the physical health of the mother being a key factor. In ready access to clean drinking water or hygienic human
societies where most women bear a large number of waste-disposal facilities.
babies, the women also tend to be inadequately nourished,
exhausted from overwork, suffering from disease, and The map showing the world distribution of infant mor-
poorly educated. Often, infants die because they are tality (Fig. 2.18) reveals high rates in many poorer countries.
improperly weaned. Demographers report that many The map shows infant mortality patterns at five levels ranging
children die because their parents do not know how to from 100 or more per thousand (one death for every eight live
cope with the routine childhood problem of diarrhea. births) to fewer than 15. Compare this map to that of overall
This condition, together with malnutrition, is the leading crude death rate (CDR) in Figure 2.14, and the role of infant
killer of children throughout the world. Poor sanitation is mortality in societies with high death rates is evident.
yet another threat to infants and children. Estimates are
that more than one-fifth of the world’s population lacks The lowest infant mortality rate among larger popu-
lations has long been reported by Japan, with 3.0 deaths per
1000 live births in a country of over 127 million people.

GREENLAND
10

Arctic Circle

3 FINLAND

ICELAND NORWAY 3 RUSSIA
10
60° 4 SWEDEN ESTONIA 7 60°
KAZAKHSTAN
AOTLCAENATNICUIRNEITLEADNDKIN4FGRDAONMCS5BE3WEINTL4ZDGE4.5ET. NHGSM.EL4ACORA4BURVR.OSCO.KSTZ.4...44R3P6HE9OUP7LN.7S5GA7L.NVKDR11.O71MUB6.KUBLREG9AL.LIANILTREAHUTMUSVAOIANGLIED8AOO6RV1GA2IA 24 MONGOLIA
37
UZBEKISTAN
15 22
40° PORTUGAL SPAIN ITALY SERB. 9 MACE. ARMENIA19 51 29 KYRGYZSTAN N. 40°
5 3 3 MONT. GREECE TURKEY 39 TAJIKISTAN KOREA
10 TURKMENISTAN 27 JAPAN
MOROCCO 5 24 42
28 KOS. AZERBAIJAN 4 3
42 ALB. CHINA
TUNISIA 15 CYPRUS 916S1Y6RIA IRAN AFGHANISTAN 16 S.
26 LEBANON 4 16 42 149 KOREA
IRAQ
42 PA C I F I C

ISRAEL JORDAN 8 NEPAL BHUTAN Tropic of Cancer
45 45
ALGERIA LIBYA EGYPT KUWAIT PAKISTAN OCEAN
26 20 25 10 63 BANGLADESH
WESTERN BAHRAIN 12 51 MYANMAR
SAHARA 60 QATAR 12
TAIWAN
SAUDI U.A.E. 5

MAURITANIA ARABIA OMAN INDIA (BURMA) 60 20°
60 48 49 LAOS
MALI 16 16
111 NIGER
112 ERITREA 55 THAILAND VIETNAM 19
SENEGAL CHAD 41 YEMEN 21 PHILIPPINES
95 SUDAN 16
GAMBIA 72 56 BURKINA
68 CAMBODIA
GUINEA-BISSAU 96 FASO 81 DJIBOUTI 55
GUINEA 56
61
IVORY 62 NIGERIA SRI LANKA
78 92 CENTRAL 10
COAST 49 AFRICAN REP. SOUTH ETHIOPIA
SIERRA LEONE 74 65 CAMEROON 99 SUDAN 77 BRUNEI
61 SOMALIA 12
LIBERIA 68 106

TOGO UGANDA IN D I A N MALAYSIA
GHANA 52 BENIN 15
CONGO 63
GABON 76 RWANDA 62 KENYA SINGAPORE Equator 0°
EQUATORIAL 50 64 52 2
GUINEA PAPUA FIJI
THE CONGO NEW 11
GUINEA
77 78 BURUNDI OCEAN IN D O N E S I A 43 SOLOMON 20°
28 ISLANDS
TANZANIA
67 18

COMOROS EAST TIMOR
53 38
AT L A N T I C ANGOLA
176 ZAMBIA 81 MALAWI AUSTRALIA

67 VANUATU
47
20° 20° NA4M6IBIABOTSWAZNIMAB3AB0WE MOC¸ AMBIQUE MADAGASCAR 20° 20°
79 53 Tropic of Capricorn NEW 6
CALEDONIA
11 MAURITIUS
12

OCEAN 63 5
SWAZILAND
SOUTH
AFRICA 55
LESOTHO
43

NEW

ZEALAND
5
40° 40° 40°

0° 20° 40° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160°
60° 60° 60° 60°
OCEAN
SOUTHERN

Antarctic Circle

64 Chapter 2 Population

Some less populated countries show even lower IMRs. Sin- Asian population sectors it lies between these two figures.
gapore has over 4.5 million people and an incredibly low The reported average for South Africa does not tell ethnic
IMR of just under 3, and Sweden’s nearly 9 million people and class differences within South Africa.
record an IMR of 2.8.
In the United States, in 2004, the IMR for African
In 2008, 22 countries still reported an IMR of 100 or Americans was 13.6, above the countrywide average of 6.8
more, and several had rates of 125 or higher—that is, one and the IMR of 5.7 for non-Hispanic whites. The risk fac-
death or more among every eight newborns. Sierra Leone tors that lead to a high IMR afflict African Americans at a
and Afghanistan had the highest IMR: 165. Dreadful as much higher rate than non-Hispanic whites in the United
these figures are, they are a substantial improvement over States. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 88.9
the situation 20 years ago (although they are not much percent of non-Hispanic whites but only 76.5 percent of
improved since 1997). Globally, infant mortality has been African Americans received prenatal care starting in the
declining, even in the poverty-stricken regions of the world. first trimester of their pregnancy. Lower education levels
for African American women also contributed to the higher
Each of these observations about infant mortality IMR. One risk factor that contributes to high IMR, smok-
rates considers what is happening within an entire coun- ing during pregnancy, was higher for non-Hispanic whites.
try. The IMR varies within countries and gives us a lens The Centers for Disease Control found that 13.8 percent
into variations in access to health care and health educa- of non-Hispanic whites smoked cigarettes during preg-
tion within a country. A statistic typically varies by region, nancy in 2004, and 8.4 percent of African American women
ethnicity, social class, or other criteria. The IMR of South smoked during pregnancy.
Africa is 48 per 1000, an average of all the people within
the country’s borders. The IMR for South African whites The IMR in the United States also varies by
is near the European average; for black Africans it is region, with the highest IMR in the South and the low-
nearer the African average; and for the Coloured and est in the Northeast (Fig. 2.19). Race, ethnicity, social

WA VT ME
4.8 5.1 6.3

OR MT ND MN NH
5.8 6.4 7.5 5.6 5.4 MA
NY 4.9
NV WY SD WI
6.4 7.4 6.4 6.5 5.6 RI
7.4
CA ID CO NE MI
5.2 6.8 6.1 6.8 7.9 CT
NJ 6.6
UT KS IA PA D.C. 5.2
5.1 7.9 5.5 7.6 13.1

MO OH DE
7.5 7.5
IL IN 7.7 VA
6.7 7.6 WV MD
7.5 8.0

7.8

KY

6.7 NC
TN 8.5

8.3 SC
8.6
AZ NM OK UNITED STATES
6.8 6.3 8.5 AR GA INFANT MORTALITY
8.0
7.7 AL RATE
9.9
MS 9 or more
10.0

TX LA 7–8.9
6.3 9.2 5–6.9
Below 5
0 200 400 mi FL
0 200 400 km 7.1

AK HI
6.5 6.5

0 400 mi 0 100 mi
0 400 km
0 100 km

Figure 2.19
Infant Mortality Rate in the United States. Infant deaths per 1000 live births. Data from:
Centers for Disease Control, National Vital Statistics Reports, 2007.

How Does the Geography of Health Influence Population Dynamics? 65

class, education levels, and access to health care also ries, causes the deaths of millions more. In some coun-
vary by region in the United States, and these correla- tries, more than one in five children still die between
tions are found for many health problems from diabetes their first and fifth birthdays, a terrible record in the
to heart disease. twenty-first century.

According to the Office of Minority Health and Life Expectancy
Health Disparities at the Centers for Disease Control in
the United States, “The leading causes of infant death Another indicator of a society’s well-being lies in the
include congenital abnormalities, pre-term/low birth life expectancy of its members at birth, the number of
weight, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), prob- years, on average, someone may expect to remain alive.
lems related to complications of pregnancy, and respira- Figure 2.21 shows the average life expectancies of popu-
tory distress syndrome. SIDS deaths among American lations by country and thus does not take into account
Indian and Alaska Natives is 2.3 times the rate for non- gender differences. Women outlive men by about four
Hispanic white mothers.” years in Europe and East Asia, three years in Subsaharan
Africa, six years in North America, and seven years in
Another measurement of the health of children South America. In Russia today, the difference is
early in life is the newborn death rate, a measurement of approximately 12 years.
the number of children who die in the first month of life
out of every 1000 live births. Surprisingly, the United The map does reveal huge regional contrasts. At
States has the second highest newborn death rate in the the start of the century, world average life expectancy
world. The annual State of the World’s Mothers report was 68 for women and 64 for men. Not only are these
explains that the high newborn death rate in the United levels exceeded in the wealthy countries of the West-
States and in other wealthy countries is typically from ern world, but great progress has also been made in
premature births and low-birth-rate babies. In the poorer East Asia, where Japan’s life expectancies are the high-
countries of the world, diarrhea and infections cause half est in the world. With its low infant and child mortal-
of newborn deaths. ity rates and low fertility rates, Japan’s life expectancy
is predicted to rise to 106 by the year 2300. By con-
Figure 2.20 maps the Mother’s Index from the State trast, tropical Subsaharan African countries have the
of the World’s Mothers report. The Mother’s Index mea- lowest life expectancies. In Subsaharan Africa, the
sures 10 barometers of well-being for mothers and chil- spread of AIDS over the past three decades has low-
dren. Although the United States has a high newborn ered life expectancies in some countries below 40, a
death rate, its position on the Mother’s Index is high. The level not seen for centuries.
overwhelmingly low measurements for Subsaharan Africa
on the Mother’s Index confirms that poverty is a huge fac- Life expectancies can change in relatively short
tor in the health of women and children. Specifically, order. In the former Soviet Union, and especially in Rus-
99 percent of newborn deaths and 98 percent of maternal sia, the life expectancies of males dropped quite precipi-
deaths (deaths from giving birth) occur in the poorer tously following the collapse of communism, from 68 to
countries of the world. 62 years. In 2010, the United Nations estimated the life
expectancy for males in Russia was 63. A 2010 report in
In the countries in the world experiencing violent Foreign Affairs credited “poor diet, smoking, sedentary
conflict, the Mother’s Index plunges, and the chances of lifestyles” and alcoholism as the main reasons why men in
newborn survival fall. Examine Figure 2.20 again and note Russia have lower life expectancies than women.” In 2011,
the position of countries that have violent conflict or a the United Nations estimated Russia’s life expectancy for
recent history of conflict: Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, females was 75, twelve years longer than the life expec-
Sierra Leone, and Angola. tancy of Russian men.

Child Mortality Life expectancy figures do not mean everyone lives
to a certain age. The figure is an average that takes account
Infants who survive their first year of life still do not of the children who die young and the people who survive
have a long life expectancy in the poorer areas of the well beyond the average. The dramatically lower figures
world. The child mortality rate, which records the for the world’s poorer countries primarily reflect high
deaths of children between the ages of 1 and 5, remains infant mortality. A person who has survived beyond child-
staggeringly high in much of Africa and Asia, notably in hood can survive well beyond the recorded life expec-
the protein-deficient tropical and subtropical zones. tancy. The low life expectancy figures for the malnourished
Kwashiorkor (also known as protein malnutrition), a countries remind us again how hard hit children are in
malady resulting from a lack of protein early in life, poorer parts of the world.
afflicts millions of children; marasmus, a condition that
results from inadequate protein and insufficient calo-

66 Chapter 2 Population

GREENLAND

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA

40° UNITED STATES 40°

ATLANTIC

BERMUDA

MEXICO BAHAMAS O C E A N

20° Tropic of Cancer CUBA DOMINICAN 20° 20°
0° JAMAICA REPUBLIC 40
PACIFIC
20° U.S. OCEAN BELIZE HAITI PUERTO
(Hawai’i) HONDURAS RICO
2011 MOTHERS’
INDEX Equator GUATEMALA NICARAGUA BARBADOS
EL SALVADOR
MORE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
Above the mean of
more developed countries COSTA RICA VENEZUELA SURINAME
Below the mean of PANAMA
more developed countries
COLOMBIA FRENCH GUIANA
LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
GUYANA
Above the mean of
less developed countries ECUADOR
Below the mean of
less developed countries PERU BRAZIL

LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES 20° 20° BOLIVIA
PARAGUAY
Above the mean of Tropic of Capricorn
least developed countries
Below the mean of ARGENTINA
least developed countries
CHILE URUGUAY
No data
40° 40° 40°

60° 160° 140° 120° 60° 60° 80° 60° 40° 60°

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers SOUTHERN

0 1000 2000 Miles OCEAN

Figure 2.20
The Mothers’ Index, 2011. Save the Children calculates the mothers’ index annually, based on
13 indicators, to gauge the overall well-being of mothers and their children by country. Data from:
Save the Children.

Influence on Health and Well-Being Medical geographers study diseases, and they also
use locational analysis to predict diffusion and prescribe
Health and well-being are closely related to location and prevention strategies. A medical geographer can answer
environment. People who live in Iceland (where mosqui- questions such as: Where is the bird flu most likely to dif-
toes are rare) do not need to worry about contracting fuse and under what time line if an outbreak occurs in
malaria, unless they travel to parts of the tropics where New York City? If a country receives enough funding to
malaria prevails. People who live in close proximity to build 25 clinics for people in rural areas, where should
animals, including livestock, run a greater risk of catching these clinics be located so as to allow a maximum of
certain diseases than do people who live in cities. When an patients to be able to reach them?
outbreak of a particular disease occurs (for example “bird
flu” in East Asia), its source and diffusion are studied by Diseases can be grouped into categories to make it
specialists in medical geography. easier to understand the risks they pose. About 65 per-
cent of all diseases are known as infectious diseases,

How Does the Geography of Health Influence Population Dynamics? 67

GREENLAND

Arctic Circle

ICELAND FINLAND

60° NORWAY ESTONIA RUSSIA 60°
SWEDEN LATVIA

UNITED KINGDOM DENMARK LITHUANIA

IRELAND NETH.

ATLANTIC BELG. GER. POLAND BELARUS
MOLDOVA
UKRAINE
CZECH REP.
SLOVAKIA
AUS. HUNG. KAZAKHSTAN
SWITZ.
MONGOLIA
OCEAN FRANCE SLOV. ROM. GEORGIA KYRGYZSTAN N.
SPAIN CRO. SERB. CHINA KOREA
PORTUGAL
BOS. BULG. S.
KOREA
40° MONT. MACEDONIA ARMENIA UZBEKISTAN 40°
ITALY KOS.
GREECE TURKEYAZERBAIJAN TURKMENISTAN TAJIKISTAN JAPAN PACIFIC
ALB.
Tropic of Cancer
TUNISIA CYPRUS SYRIA
LEBANON IRAQ OCEAN
IRAN AFGHANISTAN

MOROCCO ISRAEL JORDAN BHUTAN
NEPAL
ALGERIA KUWAIT PAKISTAN
BAHRAIN
WESTERN LIBYA EGYPT

SAHARA QATAR U.A.E. BANGLADESH TAIWAN

SAUDI INDIA MYANMAR
ARABIA LAOS
MAURITANIA ERITREA YEMEN OMAN 20°
MALI
NIGER
SUDAN THAILAND VIETNAM
SENEGAL CHAD CAMBODIA PHILIPPINES
GAMBIA
BURKINA
FASO
GUINEA- GUINEA DJIBOUTI
BISSAU
NIGERIA SRI LANKA
SIERRA IVORY CENTRAL SOUTH ETHIOPIA
LEONE COAST AFRICAN REP. SUDAN BRUNEI
MALAYSIA
LIBERIA TOGO CAMEROON SOMALIA INDIAN

GHANA BENIN UGANDA

EQUATORIAL GABON CONGO RWANDA KENYA SINGAPORE Equator 0°
GUINEA
THE BURUNDI OCEAN INDONESIA PAPUA FIJI
CONGO TANZANIA NEW SOLOMON
GUINEA ISLANDS 20°

ATLANTIC ANGOLA COMOROS EAST
MALAWI TIMOR
ZAMBIA VANUATU
AUSTRALIA
20° 20° NAMIBIA ZIMBABWE MOÇAMBIQUE MADAGASCAR 20° 20° NEW
Tropic of Capricorn CALEDONIA
BOTSWANA MAURITIUS

OCEAN SOUTH SWAZILAND
AFRICA LESOTHO

NEW
ZEALAND
40° 40° 40°

60° 0° 20° 40° 60° 60° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160° 60°

SOUTHERN OC E A N

Antarctic Circle

resulting from an invasion of parasites and their multipli- Three geographic terms are used to describe the spa-
cation in the body. Malaria is an infectious disease. The tial extent of a disease. A disease is endemic when it pre-
remainder can be divided into the chronic or degenera- vails over a small area. A disease is epidemic when it spreads
tive diseases, the maladies of longevity and old age such over a large region. A pandemic disease is global in scope.
as heart disease, and the genetic or inherited diseases
we can trace to our ancestry, that is, the chromosomes Infectious Diseases
and genes that define our makeup. Sickle-cell anemia,
hemophilia, and lactose intolerance are among these Infectious diseases continue to sicken and kill millions of
genetic diseases. These can be of special geographic people annually. Malaria, an old tropical disease, alone
interest because they tend to appear in certain areas and still takes more than a million lives annually and infects
in particular populations, suggesting the need for special, about 300 million people today. HIV/AIDS, an affliction
local treatment.

68 Chapter 2 Population

GREENLAND
71

U.S.
(Alaska)

60°

CANADA
81

40° UNITED STATES 40°
78
ATLANTIC

BERMUDA 81

Tropic of Cancer MEXICO BAHAMAS O C E A N
71
PACIFIC
OCEAN 77 CUBA DOMINICAN
78 REPUBLIC
20° JAMAICA 20° 20°
0° 62 77 79
68 BELIZE 74 HAITI PUERTO BARBADOS
20° U.S. GUATEMALA717371HO7N2 DNUICRAARSAGUA 74
(Hawaii) RICO
71 TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
Equator EL SALVADOR

78

COSTA RICA 78 VENEZUELA

PANAMA 74 SURINAME

COLOMBIA 67 74 FRENCH GUIANA
75 GUYANA

ECUADOR
76

PERU BRAZIL
73 73

LIFE EXPECTANCY 20° 20° BOLIVIA
AT BIRTH BY 68
COUNTRY Tropic of Capricorn PARAGUAY
76

75 years or more ARGENTINA 76
60–74 years 77 URUGUAY
45–59 years
CHILE
78

40° 40° 40° 40°

44 or less

Data not available 160° 140° 120° 80° 60° 40°
60° 60° 60° 60°

SOUTHERN

OCEAN

0 1000 2000 3000 Kilometers

0 1000 2000 Miles

Figure 2.21 Data from: US Census Bureau, International
Life Expectancy at Birth in Years, 2011.
Database 2011

that erupted in Africa only about 30 years ago, has killed Mosquitoes are especially effective vectors of
about 25 million people since that time. These two mala- infectious diseases ranging from yellow fever (another
dies illustrate two kinds of infectious disease: vectored and historic illness) to dengue fever (a newer disease that is
nonvectored. fast spreading—see Chapter 1). But mosquitoes are
only one kind of vector. Fleas, flies, worms, snails, and
A vectored infectious disease such as malaria is trans- other vectors transmit such terrible diseases as sleep-
mitted by a intermediary vector—in malaria’s case a mos- ing sickness, river blindness, guinea worm, elephantia-
quito. What happens is that the mosquito stings an sis, and numerous others. Tropical climates, where
already-infected person or animal, called a host, and sucks warm, moist conditions allow vectors to thrive, are the
up some blood carrying the parasites. These parasites then worst-afflicted areas of the world, but infectious dis-
reproduce and multiply in the mosquito’s body and reach eases are a global phenomenon.
its saliva. The next time that mosquito stings someone,
some of the parasites are injected into that person’s blood- No disease in human history has taken more lives
stream. Now that person develops malaria as the parasites than malaria, and the battle against this scourge still is not
multiply in his or her body, and he or she is a host. won. On the day you read this, about 3000 people will die

How Does the Geography of Health Influence Population Dynamics? 69

GREENLAND
71

Arctic Circle

81 FINLAND
ICELAND 79
60° NORWAY 80 ESTONIA 73 RUSSIA 60°
UNITED KINGDOM SWEDEN 66
80 LATVIA 73
DENMARK 81 LITHUANIA 75
IRELAND 80 NETH. 79
71
80 POLAND BELARUS

AOTLCAENATNIC40° SP8FA1RINAN8SC1WEBIEAT8UL0ZSG.TI.T.88GSA128LELO0CYRMVR.CK.O7OB8OZ78NO..0S77TSR7.7.7.HE69UPS7SN.7GL57EG67VR4R.5KE8BM.E07R.7C7A6O44CEMBE.6U.7T9L1UGUR7M.KK3ORELAYDINAOGREVEMAOEARNZGEIA7IRA77B3AIJ6A7N KAZAKHSTAN MONGOLIA
69 68

PORTUGAL UZBEKISTAN KYRGYZSTAN CHINA N. JAPAN 40°
79 73 70 75 KOREA
82
TURKMENISTAN 66 TAJIKISTAN 69
69
79
MOROCCO 75 70 ALB. CYPRUS 78 SYRIA S.
76 TUNISIA 77 LEBANON 75 75 IRAQ
KOREA
ISRAEL IRAN AFGHANISTAN
81 WEST BANK71 70 45 BHUTAN PACIFIC
75 NEPAL
EGYPT 78 PAKISTAN Tropic of Cancer
ALGERIA LIBYA 73 JORDAN 77 76 66 66 67
75 78 80 KUWAIT 77 OCEAN

WESTERN BAHRAIN
SAHARA
QATAR BANGLADESH TAIWAN
61 SAUDI U.A.E. 70 78
MYANMAR 72 PHILIPPINES
MUARITANIA MALI ARABIA OMAN INDIA (BURMA) 62 20°
61 53 74 74 67
64 65 LAOS
YEMEN
NIGER CHAD ERITREA THAILAND VIETNAM
53 48 74 72
SENEGAL SUDAN 63

GAMBIA 64 60 BURKINA 55 CAMBODIA

FASO 54
GUINEA-BISSAU49 GUINEA DJIBOUTI 61 63
5860 ETHIOPIA

56 56
SIERRA LEONE 57

I N D I A NLIBERIA
IVORY 61 NIGERIA SOUTH 76 SRI LANKA BRUNEI
COAST 48 CENTRAL 76
AFRICAN REP. SUDAN SOMALIA
57 CAMEROON 50 55 50 MALAYSIA
74
GHANA TOGO BENIN 54 UGANDA
63 SINGAPORE
82
EQUATORIAL GABON CONGO 53 KENYA Equator 0°
53 55 RWANDA 58 60 IN D O N E S I A
71 PAPUA FIJI
GUINEA NEW GUINEA 71

O C E A N62 66 20°
THE 59 BURUNDI SOLOMON
CONGO ISLANDS

55 TANZANIA 74

53

ATLANTIC ANGOLA ZAMBIA COMOROS EAST TIMOR
39 52 64 68

MALAWI AUSTRALIA VANUATU
52 82 65

20° 20° NAMIBIA ZIMBABWE MOC¸ AMBIQUE MADAGASCAR MAURITIUS 20° 20° NEW 77
50 52 64 75 Tropic of Capricorn CALEDONIA

52 BOTSWANA
58

OCEAN 49

SOUTH 52 SWAZILAND
AFRICA LESOTHO

49

NEW

40° 40° 40° ZEALAND
81

0° 20° 40° 60° 100° 120° 140° 160°
60° 60° 60°
60° S O U T H E R N OCEAN

Antarctic Circle

from malaria, the great majority of them in Africa and HIV/AIDS (discussed below) is a nonvectored infectious
most of them children. What these numbers do not tell disease that is transmitted primarily through sexual con-
you is that an estimated 3 to 5 million people live lives that tact and secondarily through needle sharing in intrave-
are shortened and weakened by malaria infection. If you nous drug use.
do not die from malaria as a youngster, you are likely to be
incapacitated or struggle in exhaustion with chronically Chronic and Genetic Diseases
severe anemia throughout your life (see Chapter 10 for a
longer discussion of malaria). Chronic diseases (also called degenerative diseases) are the
afflictions of middle and old age, reflecting higher life
Nonvectored infectious diseases, such as influenza, expectancies. Among the chronic diseases, heart disease,
are transmitted by direct contact between host and victim. cancers, and strokes rank as the leading diseases in this cat-
A kiss, a handshake, or even the slightest brush can trans- egory, but pneumonia, diabetes, and liver diseases also take
mit influenza, a cold, or some other familiar malady. Even their toll. In the United States 100 years ago, tuberculosis,
standing close to another person who exhales and spreads
tiny moisture particles can transmit the disease to you.

70 Chapter 2 Population

TABLE 2.1 the result can be serious metabolic malfunction. For
Leading Causes of Death in the United States, 2010. Data example, some people suffer from a malady called primary
from: Center for Disease Control, National Center for Health lactose intolerance. If you suffer from this disorder, you
Statistics, 2010 and U.S. Census Statistical Abstract 2011. do not have an adequate supply of one (or a set) of enzymes
that you need to break down the milk sugar lactose.
Cause Percent
1. Heart Disease 25% AIDS
2. Cancer 23%
3. Stroke 6% Low life expectancies in some parts of the world are
4. Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease 5% caused by the ravages of diseases such as AIDS (Acquired
5. Accidents 5% Immune Deficiency Syndrome)—a disease identified in
6. Diabetes 3% Africa in the early 1980s. Undoubtedly, AIDS had taken
7. Alzheimer’s Disease 3% hold in Africa years earlier, perhaps decades earlier. But
its rapid diffusion worldwide began in the 1980s, creat-
pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and heart diseases (in that ing one of the greatest health catastrophes of the past
order) were the chief killers. Today, heart disease and century. Nowhere has its impact been greater than in
cancer head the list, with stroke (cerebral hemorrhage) Africa itself.
next and accidents also high on the list (Table 2.1). In the
early 1900s, tuberculosis and pneumonia caused 20 per- Medical geographers estimate that in 1980 about
cent of all deaths; today, they cause fewer than 5 percent. 200,000 people were infected with HIV (Human Immu-
The diarrheal diseases, which were so high on the old list, nodeficiency Virus, which causes AIDS), all of them
are now primarily children’s maladies. Today, the diar- Africans. By 2007, the number worldwide exceeded 33.2
rheal diseases are not even on the list of the 10 leading million according to the United Nations AIDS Program,
causes of death. with 68 percent (22.5 million) of all cases in Subsaharan
Africa! The infection rate has been slowing, and some
At the global scale, diseases of infancy have been regions have experienced a downturn, but eastern
largely defeated, and such infectious diseases as tuberculosis Europe and Central Asia have recently seen a surge in
and pneumonia are less serious threats than they were. The HIV infection.
battles against cancer and heart disease, however, are far
from won. Recent decades have brought new lifestyles, new AIDS is a debilitating disease that weakens the body
pressures, new consumption patterns, and exposure to new and reduces its capacity to combat other infections. It is
chemicals, and we do not know how these affect our health. spread through bodily contact that involves the exchange
In order to distribute adequate food supplies to populations of bodily fluids such as blood or semen. Sexual activity and
in huge urban areas, we add various kinds of preservatives to shared needles can transmit it, but so can blood transfu-
foods without knowing exactly how they will affect our sions. Over a period of years, a person’s immune system is
health in the long run. We substitute artificial flavoring for impaired, weight loss and weakness set in, and other afflic-
sugar and other calorie-rich substances, but some of those tions, such as cancer or pneumonia, may hasten an
substitutes have been proven to be dangerous. Despite all infected person’s demise.
the sugar substitutes, obesity plagues a significant percent-
age of the U.S. population, bringing with it heart disease Over the past two decades, the AIDS pandemic has
and diabetes. Even the treatment of drinking water with reached virtually all parts of the world, but its full dimen-
chemicals is rather recent in the scheme of global popula- sions are unknown. People infected by HIV do not imme-
tion change, and we do not know its long-term effects. diately display visible symptoms of the disease; they can
Future chronic diseases may come from practices we take carry the virus for years without being aware of it, and
for granted as normal now. during that period they can unwittingly transmit it to oth-
ers. In its earliest stages a blood test is needed to confirm
Genetic diseases are of particular interest to medical HIV’s presence, but millions go untested. Add to this the
geographers because they are disorders that tend to be social stigma many people attach to this malady, and it is
transferred from one generation to the next and display evident that official statistics on AIDS lag behind the real
clustering that raises questions about environment and numbers.
long-term adaptation. Prominent among these are meta-
bolic diseases—the body’s inability to process all elements That is true not only in Africa but in other parts of
of the diet—in which enzymes play a key role. If the body the world as well; both India and China, for example,
fails to produce enough (or any) of a particular enzyme, long denied that AIDS presents a serious health threat to
their populations. Now China is reporting at least
650,000 infected, and the number in India may well
exceed 5 million. Estimates of the number of cases in the
United States surpass 1 million; in Middle and South

How Does the Geography of Health Influence Population Dynamics? 71

America, nearly 2 million are infected. Southeast Asia SOUTH AFRICA, 2035
now has as many as 6 million cases.
80+ ............................. Projection without AIDS
Nowhere is AIDS having the impact that it has had 75–79 ............................. Projection with AIDS
on Subsaharan Africa, however. In 2006, some 24 percent 70–74 .........................
of people aged 15 to 49 were infected in Botswana, 20 per- 65–69 ......................
cent in Zimbabwe, almost 19 percent in South Africa, and 60–64 ..................
17 percent in Zambia. These are the official data; medical 55–59 ..............
geographers estimate that 20 to 25 percent of the entire 50–54 .........
population of several tropical African countries is infected. 45–49 ......
The United Nations AIDS program reports that more 40–44 ......
than 1.6 million people died of AIDS in Subsaharan Africa 35–39 ........
in 2007 alone. Geographer Peter Gould, in his book The 30–34 .........
Slow Plague (1993), called Africa a “continent in catastro- 25–39 .........
phe,” and the demographic statistics support his view- 20–24 .........
point. Life expectancy in Botswana and Swaziland has 15–19 ..........
declined to 34 (and is projected to fall farther), and in 10–14 ...........
Zimbabwe it is 36. In a continent already ravaged by other
diseases, AIDS is the leading cause of death. 5–9 ............
0–4 .............
AIDS is reshaping the population structure of the
countries hardest hit by the disease. Demographers look 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 45
at the projected population pyramids for countries with Population (in millions)
high rates of infection and no longer see population
pyramids—they see population chimneys. The shape of Figure 2.22
the projected population pyramid is altered to look Effect of AIDS on the Population Pyramid for South Africa,
more like a chimney than a pyramid, reflecting the Predicted 2035. Estimated population, male and female, with
major impact AIDS plays on the younger population in AIDS and without AIDS. Data from: United States Census
the country and its future generations (Fig. 2.22). The Bureau, 2005.
United States Census Bureau projects that AIDS will
cause higher rates of death among young women than decline in AIDS-related deaths was in South Africa
young men. In countries with population chimneys, between 2004 and 2009, when AIDS-related deaths in
men will take younger and younger brides, thus increas- Subsahran Africa diminished by 20 percent. The declin-
ing the rate of AIDS in younger females. ing death rate from AIDS is due to increased access to
anti-retro viral drugs (ARVs) that slow the progression of
Geographers are engaging in fieldwork to under- the disease), better health-care access for people living
stand the human toll of AIDS locally and within families. with HIV, and a decline in the number of new infections
Geographer Elsbeth Robson studied the impact of AIDS since the late 1990s.
in hard-hit Zimbabwe. She found that global processes
such as the diffusion of AIDS and reductions in spending Uganda, once Africa’s worst afflicted country, has
on health care (often mandated by structural adjustment slowed the growth of AIDS through an intensive, govern-
programs) “shape young people’s home lives and structure ment-sponsored campaign of propaganda and action—
their wider experiences.” In Subsaharan Africa, the num- notably the distribution of condoms in even the remotest
ber of children orphaned when parents die from AIDS is part of the country. Access to ARVs in Africa has increased
growing rapidly (Fig. 2.23). In 2004, UNICEF reported markedly over the last decade. As a result of pressure from
that in just two years, between 2001 and 2003, the number HIV/AIDS activists and governments, pharmaceutical
of global AIDS orphans (children who have lost a parent companies have decreased prices of ARVs. Today, over 5
to AIDS) rose from 11.5 million to 15 million. Robson million people in developing countries are being treated
found that in addition to the rising number of AIDS with ARVs. Nonetheless, the impact of AIDS will be felt in
orphans, many young children, especially girls, are taken African economies and in African demographics for gener-
out of school to serve as caregivers for their relatives with ations to come. HIV/AIDS will constrain African economic
AIDS (Figure 2.24). Robson found in her interviews with development (see Chapter 10) and require world interven-
young caregivers that “more children are becoming young tion to overcome.
carers as households struggle to cope with income and
labor losses through illness and mortality.”

There are few positives to report. The number of
AIDS-related deaths is declining globally from a peak of
2.1 million in 2004 to 1.8 million in 2009. The greatest

72 Chapter 2 Population

Field Note HIV/AIDS the opportunity to live in a clean, safe environ-
ment. Playing with the children brought home the fragility
“The day was so beautiful and the children’s faces so expres- of human life and the extraordinary impacts of a modern
sive I could hardly believe I was visiting an AIDS hospice plague that has spread relentlessly across significant parts
village set up for children. The Sparrow Rainbow Village on of Subsaharan Africa.”
the edges of Johannesburg, South Africa, is the product of
an internationally funded effort to provide children with

Figure 2.23
Johannesburg, South Africa. © Alexander B. Murphy.

Study Figure 2.19, the infant mortality rate (IMR) by state in HOW DO GOVERNMENTS AFFECT
the United States. Hypothesize why the IMR is low in some POPULATION CHANGE?
regions of the country and high in others. Shift scales in your
mind, and take one state and choose one state to consider: Over the past century, many of the world’s govern-
how do you think IMR varies within this state? What other ments have instituted policies designed to influence the
factors are involved at this scale and this level of general- overall growth rate or ethnic ratios within the popula-
ization to explain the pattern of IMRs? Use the population tion. Certain policies directly affect the birth rate via laws
Internet sites listed at the end of this chapter to determine ranging from subsidized abortions to forced sterilization.
whether your hypotheses are correct. Others influence family size through taxation or subven-
tion. These policies fall into three groups: expansive,
eugenic, and restrictive.

The former Soviet Union and China under Mao
Zedong led other communist societies in expansive

Guest This drawing was done by a Pokot boy in a remote primary school in northwestern Kenya. He
Field Note agreed to take part in my fieldwork some years after I had started researching young carers in
Subsaharan Africa. Since those early interviews in Zimbabwe I have been acutely aware of young
Marich Village, Kenya carers’ invisibility—you can’t tell who is a young carer just by looking at them. Indeed, invisibility
is a characteristic of many aspects of the social impacts of HIV/AIDS. This young person drew
himself working in the fields and taking care of cattle. African young people help with farming and
herding for many reasons, but for young caregivers, assisting their sick family members in this way
is especially important.

Credit: Elsbeth Robson, Keele University

Figure 2.24

population policies, which encourage large families and ince, 87 children were born, about 4 times the average daily
raise the rate of natural increase. Ideological, anticapital- birth rate in the province. Russia experienced an increase in
ist motives drove those policies, since abandoned in China. TFR in the first half of 2008, but the ability to sustain a high
Today, some countries are again pursuing expansive pop- TFR in the country will depend on many factors, including
ulation policies—because their populations are aging and alleviating social problems, stabilizing incomes, and con-
declining. The aging population in Europe has encour- tinued government support.
aged some countries to embark on policies to encourage
(through tax incentives and other fiscal means) families to In the past, some governments engaged in eugenic
have more children. population policies, which were designed to favor one
racial or cultural sector of the population over others.
Birth rates in Russia plummeted after the 1991 col- Nazi Germany was a drastic example of eugenics, but
lapse of the Soviet Union. The TFR in Russia in 1980 was other countries also have pursued eugenic strategies,
2.04, and now it is only 1.34. Russian Prime Minister though in more subtle ways. Until the time of the civil
Vladimir Putin calls the demographic crisis Russia’s great- rights movement in the 1960s, some observers accused
est current problem. The Russian government offers cash the United States of pursuing social policies tinged with
subsidies of $10,000 to women who give birth to a second eugenics that worked against the interests of African
or third child. Americans. Some argue that Japan’s nearly homogeneous
culture is the result of deliberately eugenic social policies.
In response to concerns over Russia’s aging popula- Eugenic population policies can be practiced covertly
tion, the government of Ulyanovsk Province has held a through discriminatory taxation, biased allocation of
National Day of Conception each September 12 since resources, and other forms of racial favoritism.
2005. In 2007, government and businesses in Ulyanovsk
Province offered the afternoon off for people to participate Today many of the world’s governments seek to
in the National Day of Conception. The government reduce the rate of natural increase through various
planned to award a free car to the proud parents of one of forms of restrictive population policies. These policies
the children born 9 months later, on June 12—the Russian range from toleration of officially unapproved means of
National Day. On June 12, 2008 in the Ulyanovsk Prov- birth control to outright prohibition of large families.

73

74 Chapter 2 Population

Figure 2.25
Chengdu, China. A large billboard warning readers to follow China’s one-child policy.

© H. J. de Blij.

China’s one-child policy, instituted after the end of the today, China’s growth rate is 0.5 percent. The main goal
Maoist period in the 1970s, drastically reduced China’s of the one-child policy was achieved, but the policy also
growth rate from one of the world’s fastest to one of the had several unintended consequences, including an
world’s slowest (Fig. 2.25). Under the one-child policy, increased abortion rate, an increase in female infanticide,
families that had more than one child were penalized and a high rate of orphaned girls (many of whom were
financially, and educational opportunities and housing adopted in the United States and Canada).
privileges were kept from families who broke the one-
child mandate. During the 1990s, under pressure to improve its
human rights records and also with the realization that
Population growth rates in China fell quickly under the population was quickly becoming gender (Fig. 2.26)
the one-child policy. In the 1970s, China’s growth rate and age imbalanced (Fig. 2.27), China relaxed its one-
was 3 percent; in the mid-1980s it was 1.2 percent; and, child policy. Several caveats allow families to have more

Population Pyramids, China: 2010 and 2050

2010 2050

Percentage Percentage

Males Females Males Females
80+ ......................... 80+ .............
Figure 2.26 70–74 ...................... 70–74 ...............
Population Pyramids, China: 2010 and 60–64 .................. 60–64 ........
2050. Data from: Population Reference 50–54 ............. 50–54 ..........
Bureau, 2010. 40–44 ...... 40–44 ............
30–34 ........... 30–34 ..............
20–24 ...... 20–24 ...............
10–14 .......... 10–14 ................
0–4 ............ 0–4 .................

10 8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10 10 8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10

% of population % of population